Vatican beatifies 498 Spanish martyrs

[Daithí]

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican took on Spain's Socialist government Sunday, criticizing its social policies as the church beatified nearly 500 victims of leftist persecution during the country's civil war era.
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The ceremony was the largest mass beatification ever by the Vatican, which supported the fascist dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco during and after his war against the leftists.

Some in Spain questioned the timing of the beatification of the 498 martyrs, which came three days before Spain's parliament is expected to pass a Socialist-sponsored law that will for the first time formally condemn Franco's rule and order the removal of all fascist symbols from the country.

Today's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is far more moderate than its civil war namesake, although it does espouse some of the same left-wing policies.

Critics say the Vatican was hitting back at the government by simultaneously beatifying the two bishops, 24 priests and 462 members of religious orders, as well as a deacon, a subdeacon, a seminary student and seven lay Catholics. Since the late 1980s the church has beatified nearly 500 other clergy killed in the war, but in a series of smaller ceremonies.

Spain's 1936-39 civil war pitted the elected leftist government against right-wing forces that rose up under Franco, who went on to win and presided over a nearly 40-year dictatorship.

Starting in 1931, the leftist forces targeted the Catholic Church, an institution they saw as a symbol of wealth, repression and inequality. Their attacks, which killed an estimated 7,000 clergy from 1931 to 1939, gave Franco a pretext for launching his rebellion.

Seventy-one bishops from Spain, a host of conservative Spanish politicians and Spanish pilgrims massed in St. Peter's Square for Sunday's ceremony, waving Spanish flags and breaking into applause after Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints, declared the 498 beatified.

In his homily, Saraiva Martins took aim at Socialist legislation that facilitates divorce and gay marriages, as well as the administration's scrapping of plans by a previous conservative government to make religion an obligatory subject in schools.

Criticizing all three initiatives, Saraiva Martins said there was a need to protect the family "founded on the sole and indissoluble marriage between a man and woman, on the primary right for parents to educate their children."

The comments drew sustained applause from the crowd, which included Spaniards toting postcards featuring Franco-era flags.

Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and regional authorities attended but the Spanish government did not comment on the ceremony.

Pope Benedict XVI appeared at his studio window after the Mass to greet the pilgrims, saying the beatification of so many ordinary Catholics showed that martyrdom wasn't reserved for a few but "is a realistic possibility for the entire Christian people."

"This martyrdom in ordinary life is an important witness in today's secularized society," he said.

The church says the ceremony is being held now because Benedict finished signing the decrees only two months ago, not because of any attempt to coincide with this week's parliament vote.

Pilgrim Jose-Luis Martin Paredes, a retired truck driver from Toledo, Spain, strongly criticized his government and applauded the Vatican's stance.

"Spain doesn't want the church because we have Socialists and Communists in the government," he said. "I came here to support Spain and the martyrs."

Ties between the church and the Spanish government, which took office in 2004, have also grown tense over the government's attempts to make the church more self-financing. As of a year ago, Spain no longer makes direct payments to the church, instead allowing taxpayers a choice whether to divert 0.7 percent of their taxes or not.

[Lobo1888]

most of the martyrs were killed long before Franco's movement became facist or even Franco started his campaign. To be honest, as a catholic, I would also join the opposition of those who slaughter (my) clergy. 498 martyrs had nothing to do with facism, they were killed because of their religion (muslims and jews also had troubles in republican Spain).
Later in the civil war, democrats and socialists also have been victims of "republican" terror when stalinists took the full power. For example, a major republican split was in Barcelona where many international volunteers had no idea for who to fight for.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

most of the martyrs were killed long before Franco's movement became facist or even Franco started his campaign. To be honest, as a catholic, I would also join the opposition of those who slaughter (my) clergy. 498 martyrs had nothing to do with facism, they were killed because of their religion (muslims and jews also had troubles in republican Spain).
Later in the civil war, democrats and socialists also have been victims of "republican" terror when stalinists took the full power. For example, a major republican split was in Barcelona where many international volunteers had no idea for who to fight for.

I think the same and I too would have joined the opposition fighting those who would slaughter clergymen.

[KillinSnakes]

How bout the countless victims of Franco post-civil war?

This kind of **** is why I will never go back to the Church!

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

If your talking about innocent civilians then yes the deserve recognition. If they were combatants then it was civil war.

The Catholic Church isn't hailing any combatants as martyrs. The priests were non-combatant. They were slaughtered for the same reasons the Soviets persecuted the faithful within the Russian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church and the Muslim religion.

It is for this reason that I could never truly support those who's ideology is for the creation of an "authoritarian" socialist state. Inevitably what will follow the creation of such a state is a political/ideological cleansing of all dissenting opinion. That happend under the Soviets, the Cultural Revolution in the Peoples Republic of China, and to my family under the revolutionary government in Mexico.

[broche]

most of the martyrs were killed long before Franco's movement became facist or even Franco started his campaign. To be honest, as a catholic, I would also join the opposition of those who slaughter (my) clergy. 498 martyrs had nothing to do with facism, they were killed because of their religion (muslims and jews also had troubles in republican Spain).
same here

[Lobo1888]

Franco's side wasn't a facist until he had some significant success, then he started collaboration with Italy and Germany. Republicans had two fractions, one was trying to get some help from France and UK, the other was stalinist supported by USSR.
Most people fought for the reason: "side A came and killed someone I knew, I'll join side B".
It is a natural thing to do when you and your ways (culture, religion) get threatened. Just like there was a Cristero war in México.

[Joseph Pariah]

The Catholic Church was and still is an enemy of the people. They openly supported fascists like Franco, Mussolini and were very quiet regarding the activities of Nazi Germany. The Vatican is the largest private land owner in the world and yet it distributes very little of that wealth to the poor.

This was the case in Spain prior to Socialists taking power. The country was crippled by poverty while the State, the Church and the capitalists horded all the wealth. The majority of these 'martyrs' probably supported the overthrow of the Republican government, the Anarchists and the Communists. In other words; they most likely deserved it.

[broche]

so you are justifying the murder of nuns and priests?

[Lobo1888]

The Catholic Church was and still is an enemy of the people. They openly supported fascists like Franco, Mussolini and were very quiet regarding the activities of Nazi Germany. The Vatican is the largest private land owner in the world and yet it distributes very little of that wealth to the poor.

This was the case in Spain prior to Socialists taking power. The country was crippled by poverty while the State, the Church and the capitalists horded all the wealth. The majority of these 'martyrs' probably supported the overthrow of the Republican government, the Anarchists and the Communists. In other words; they most likely deserved it.

Church is the enemy of the people??? Well then, who is a friend? Most of the humanitarian aid to poor and for the refugees in my country was organised by Catholic church.

Jews were the wealthiest in Germany 80 years ago, while german people starved during hyperinflation, so by this, jews deserved to be killed by Nazis???

you are defending the worst capitalists, the real communist regime produces the worst kind of capitalism. Majority works for low wages, and minority (highest party members) take the cream and are protected from any law. No religion, no moral values, just look at the great economies of DR Korea or PR China.

[Joseph Pariah]

so you are justifying the murder of nuns and priests?


If they are counter-revolutionaries yes.

[broche]

so its all right to massacre people as long as the perpretrators are socialists?

[Joseph Pariah]

Church is the enemy of the people??? Well then, who is a friend? Most of the humanitarian aid to poor and for the refugees in my country was organised by Catholic church.

Jews were the wealthiest in Germany 80 years ago, while german people starved during hyperinflation, so by this, jews deserved to be killed by Nazis???

you are defending the worst capitalists, the real communist regime produces the worst kind of capitalism. Majority works for low wages, and minority (highest party members) take the cream and are protected from any law. No religion, no moral values, just look at the great economies of DR Korea or PR China.


First of all; I have no problem with Catholics. Everyone should have the right to religious freedom. I only take issue with the Vatican state and the Roman Catholic Church as an international institution. As I said before; it is the largest landowner in the world and yet the majority of its followers live in abject poverty receiving minimal support from their Church. Charity will not deliver working and poorer class emancipation; Revolutionary Socialism will.

Secondly; comparing Nazi Germany with 1930s Republican Spain is an obscenity. The Jewish people were not oppressing Germans. They may have on an individual basis as capitalists, but that has nothing to do with their ethnicity or religious preference. In actuality; the only comparison that can be made is the opposite of your claim. Franco and his allies (Wealthy landowners, Captains of Industry and the Roman Catholic Church) were akin to the Nazis as it was they who destroyed the working class revolution; it was they who persecuted ethnic and religious minorities – not the Republicans, Anarchists or Communists.

And as for North Korea and China; neither of those countries are Socialist. They are state-directed capitalist economies controlled by an autocrat (in the case of North Korea) and a highly corrupt bureaucracy (in the case of China).

[Joseph Pariah]

so its all right to massacre people as long as the perpretrators are socialists?


I didn't say that.

[broche]

sorry but I don't see how murdering defenceless clergy helps the 'revolution'

[Vox Populi]

sorry but I don't see how murdering defenceless clergy helps the 'revolution'

http://www.the-tribulation-network.com/dougkrieger/times_and_seasons/priest_hitler_salute.JPG

http://uufnorthiowa.org/calendar/images/NaziPriestsSaluteHitler.jpg

[Joseph Pariah]

sorry but I don't see how murdering defenceless clergy helps the 'revolution'


Neither do I, but words can sometimes be more damaging than any amount of weaponry. The Catholic Church was a major problem for Republicans during the Irish Civil War. It helped to turn people against the IRA by lending its credibility amongst the Irish population to bolster the illegitimate and capitalist Free State.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

The Catholic Church was and still is an enemy of the people. They openly supported fascists like Franco, Mussolini and were very quiet regarding the activities of Nazi Germany. The Vatican is the largest private land owner in the world and yet it distributes very little of that wealth to the poor.

This was the case in Spain prior to Socialists taking power. The country was crippled by poverty while the State, the Church and the capitalists horded all the wealth. The majority of these 'martyrs' probably supported the overthrow of the Republican government, the Anarchists and the Communists. In other words; they most likely deserved it.


Ahh Joseph my wife is from the former Soviet Union and all though it wasn't as bad (for her family, her uncle was a major in the soviet army) it still wasn't good as all the Soviet propaganda made it out to be. Especially when it came to freedom of thought and the freedom to express that thought and the freedom to practice your religion freely.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

If they are counter-revolutionaries yes.

I would say that massacring people unarmed non-combatants for any reason is wrong. In recent years many have tried to justify (or not acknowledge) the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Jews, gypsies and Serb speaking Muslims from Kosovo saying that the Serbs massacred ethnically Albanians in Kosovo. However this too is wrong and worse, it happend under the nose of NATO that was supposedly there to protect the minorities while the ethnic Albanian majority was stealing a historical Serbian province with the help of NATO.

Never would I justify those massacres on all sides. Even though I agree with the Serbs fighting to keep Kosovo, I would still condemn massacres carried out by their forces to that end.

[Joseph Pariah]

By the way Lobo,

http://www.imagehosting.com/out.php/i1316863_Hitler29.jpg (http://www.imagehosting.com)

Hitler greeting Ante Pavelić

The Catholic Church in Croatia supported Pavelić, a pro-Nazi and notoriously ruthless dictator. His regime was responsible for campaigns of ethnic cleansing against Jews, Serbs, Muslims and Gypsies. There were also mass executions of Socialists. The Vatican later assisted him in fleeing to Belgium and then on to Argentina where he became an advisor to Perón. Basically; God fearing fascists are embraced by the Roman Catholic Church!

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

By the way Lobo,

http://www.imagehosting.com/out.php/i1316863_Hitler29.jpg (http://www.imagehosting.com)

Hitler greeting Ante Pavelić

The Catholic Church in Croatia supported Pavelić, a pro-Nazi and notoriously ruthless dictator. His regime was responsible for campaigns of ethnic cleansing against Jews, Serbs, Muslims and Gypsies. There were also mass executions of Socialists. The Vatican later assisted him in fleeing to Belgium and then on to Argentina where he became an advisor to Perón. Basically; God fearing fascists are embraced by the Roman Catholic Church!

The Church has made mistakes, but I think those the Catholic Church has protected pales in comparison to the mass murderers protected and embraced by the Communist regimes of the last century.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

The Church has made mistakes, but I think those the Catholic Church has protected pales in comparison to the mass murderers protected and embraced by the Communist regimes of the last century.

In my opinion the Catholic Churches support of fascists was only in response to the radical anti-clericalism of the Communists.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

I think it would be fair to say that George Orwell's experiences fighting for the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War made him staunchly anti-Communist. That's not to say it made it pro-Capitalist. Indeed he held onto his socialist ideals, but he ended up opposing tyranny in all forms. Both fascist and communist alike.

[Joseph Pariah]

And are you going to list some of these murderers? I'm not denying that violent excesses occurred under Socialism, but the Catholic Church has been supporting tyrannical regimes for many centuries. Being anti-Socialist, and therefore anti-working and poor people, is no excuse for supporting borderline psychopaths like Pavelić. Nazi officers in Croatia despised his goons and even went as far as to arrest some of them; such was the extent of their atrocities.

[quirk]

In my opinion the Catholic Churches support of fascists was only in response to the radical anti-clericalism of the Communists.

What do you base this belief on?

[march of the beggars]

I support the Beatification of the Martyrs, the Communists clearly intended to inflict a nightmare on all God fearing people by executing the faithful.
No doubt i will be branded a fascist for this, but shooting nuns is not my vision of freedom fighting.

[Lobo1888]

By the way Lobo,

http://www.imagehosting.com/out.php/i1316863_Hitler29.jpg (http://www.imagehosting.com)

Hitler greeting Ante Pavelić

The Catholic Church in Croatia supported Pavelić, a pro-Nazi and notoriously ruthless dictator. His regime was responsible for campaigns of ethnic cleansing against Jews, Serbs, Muslims and Gypsies. There were also mass executions of Socialists. The Vatican later assisted him in fleeing to Belgium and then on to Argentina where he became an advisor to Perón. Basically; God fearing fascists are embraced by the Roman Catholic Church!

:eusa_clap:
Croatian Cardinal Stepinac was imprisoned for his open protests against facists and ustaše goverment of Ante Pavelić. Many priests helped jewish families by forgery of the church archives so that their ancestry could be written as a catholic and croatian. Cardinal Stepinac was hiding many jews on property of the Church. The only reason why they didn't kill him is because too many people already defected to partisan movement.
Anti-clerical position of socialst goverment in 1946 was so strong that they trialed Stepinac for collaboration with facists.

Also, story about Vatican helping Pavelic is probably true, but, you didn't know that before WW2, ustashe was only croatian resistance movement against Serbian king in Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and as their leader he was on wanted list by royal Yugoslav government (communists also) since ustashe and VMRO (macedonian resistance) assassinated King Alexander in Marseille.
So in 1929 he already had few false passports, he fled the country then when king Alexander banned all parties and installed 6th-january dictatorship. Till 1935, Ustashe was nothing but a rebel group similar to IRA or PLO, from 1935 to 1941 their leadership was turning right, in 1941, leadership became facist.
Number of Ustashe leaders were jews, croatian nationalists, but facist wing of ustashe movement eliminated them.
Pavelić's wife was jewish, so were the wives of ministers Kvaternik and Žanić, many officers were also jews and Serbs, however ustashe regime participated openly in holocaust.
Stepinac as representative of a Catholic Church protested for such hypocrisy.
Also, though 52.000 serbs (the most accurate number) were killed in Jasenovac, ustashe still had few collaborations with nationalist serbian chetniks.

Croats largely hate Pavelic because of his collaboration with nazis and facists, even more because he gave our national territory of Dalmatia and Istria to Italy, and Baranja and Medjimurje to Hungary, made Croatia a puppet of nazis.

[Lobo1888]

Many monks, nuns, priests, slaughtered in 1945., after the victory of yugoslav partisan movement. One of my grandpas was a partisan, he and people like him (common workers and peasants) were sent to combat while the communist officials, and lazy criminals were killing clergymen and POWs(the first wouldn't do that).
My other granddad was in Domobrani, croatian recruits, in 1943. his unit was added to 369. Kroatische teufel division in Wehrmacht. In 1945. he was POW. Most of his comrades were killed few 10km of his village. Thier hands and necks were tied, sorted in a queue, so when the first was shot in a head, he would fall in a pit and pull the others with him.
If you could kill unarmed person or a POW then something is wrong with you.

Though the first armed antifacist/partisan unit in occupied Europe was organised in Croatia, in Sisak in june 22. 1941., by members of peasant party (christian socialists) and communists, 250000 Croats were fighting against facists, Croats are always presented as some facists.

[broche]

I support the beautification as well, they were murdered for their beliefs likr the Irish Martyrs

[Joseph Pariah]

Lobo, I apologise if I caused any offense. I wasn't suggesting that every Catholic in Croatia supported Pavelić; far from it. The Balkan nations fiercely resisted the Nazi occupation and its puppet regimes. But the Roman Catholic hierarchy did support fascism. It is therefore understandable why Revolutionary forces would view the Church and its clergy with nothing but distain. That, however, does not excuse the killing of prisoners (with the exception of Nazi collaborators).

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

Lobo, I apologise if I caused any offense. I wasn't suggesting that every Catholic in Croatia supported Pavelić; far from it. The Balkan nations fiercely resisted the Nazi occupation and its puppet regimes. But the Roman Catholic hierarchy did support fascism. It is therefore understandable why Revolutionary forces would view the Church and its clergy with nothing but distain. That, however, does not excuse the killing of prisoners (with the exception of Nazi collaborators).

And are you going to list some of these murderers? I'm not denying that violent excesses occurred under Socialism, but the Catholic Church has been supporting tyrannical regimes for many centuries. Being anti-Socialist, and therefore anti-working and poor people, is no excuse for supporting borderline psychopaths like Pavelić. Nazi officers in Croatia despised his goons and even went as far as to arrest some of them; such was the extent of their atrocities.


Absoluetely I'll list the obvious first. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-Il.

[quirk]

Cambodia and North Korea were never genuine socialist states. Because someone claims to be something doesn't make them so. As for Stalin and Mao what evidence do you have to suggest that they were murderers?

[Lobo1888]

I'm not offended :)

About Stalin and Mao. Both of them were crazy, however Mao was better.
Stalin was an enemy of soviet people, in 30ies he by his command over half of his best officers were executed. Read about Great Purge!
Then, his awful agricultural policy, result was Great Ukrainian hunger in 1932.
Before, during and after the war there were numerous executions of Trockists, old Leninists, reformed socialists, POWs, and "unwanted" ethnic groups like Jews, Germans, Finns, Ukrainians, Poles, Koreans, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Finns, Lithuanians, Estonians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Latvians, and Siberians.
Due to massive deportations, assassinations, hunger, forced labor, massive executions, some count even 60 million dead!
He was poisoned in the end.

[ártybhoy]

Stalin uprooted and moved three quarters of the proud and fiercely independent people of chechnya. Of whom very little returned the same as all the german pows about 100,000 got caught and not even a quarter of them returned.
I found the link below as i'm trying to find anything good about the man so if anyone has any links to persuade me i'm all ears because if che guevara was inspired by him he must have done something good.


Humanising Stalin?
By Simon Sebag Montefiore
Joseph Stalin History portrays Stalin as an inhumane and vicious leader - but he was a man as well as a monster. Do we betray his victims by noting his human side, or will the full picture help guard us against potential tyrants in the future?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/stalin_01.shtml

[Vox Populi]

Due to massive deportations, assassinations, hunger, forced labor, massive executions, some count even 60 million dead!
60 million dead, in addition to 25 million during WWII would leave only 45 million people in the USSR in 1945. Even bourgeois historians are admiting that the last decades of academic work on Stalin are of little value and in some cases the sources contained within orginate from Fascist collaborators that fled - Robert Conquest is notorious for using Ukrianian Fascists as primary sources.

[Vox Populi]

Another view of Stalin
http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/book.html

Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union
http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/lies/lies.html

Fraud, Famine and Fascism
http://rationalrevolution.net/special/library/famine.htm

Counting the Bodies
http://www.phoblacht.net/lor0902052g.html

[quirk]

Yes indeed the Ukranian genocide myth originated with the Nazi's and was spread by the Herst media empire in the United States. When the reporter who broke the story was in court a few years later it was revealed that he had never even been to the Ukraine and the photos he used had been from previous famines.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

Cambodia and North Korea were never genuine socialist states. Because someone claims to be something doesn't make them so. As for Stalin and Mao what evidence do you have to suggest that they were murderers?


The millions of people who died during Stalin's purges of the 1930's, the policy driven Ukrainian famine, the mass deportations (estimated at 3.3 million) of possible dissenters and undesirable ethnic minorities to Siberia.

Number of victims
Early researchers attempting to tally the number of people killed under Stalin's regime were forced to rely largely upon anecdotal evidence. Their estimates ranged from a low of 3 million to as high as 60 million.[51][52] When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 however, evidence from the Soviet archives finally became available. The government archives record that about 800,000 prisoners were executed (for either political or criminal offences) under Stalin, while about 1.7 million died in the GULAG and some 389,000 perished during kulak forced resettlement - a total of about 3 million victims.

Debate continues, however,[53] since some historians believe the archival figures to be unreliable.[54][55] For example, some argue that the many suspects tortured to death while in "investigative custody" were likely not counted amongst the executed.[56][57] Also, there are certain categories of victim which it is generally agreed were carelessly recorded by the Soviets — such as the victims of ethnic deportations, or of German population transfer in the aftermath of WWII.


Child victim of the Holodomor.Thus while some archival researchers have estimated the number of victims of Stalin's repressions to be no more than about 4 million in total,[58][59][60] others believe the number to be considerably higher. Russian writer Vadim Erlikman,[61] for example, makes the following estimates: executions, 1.5 million; gulags, 5 million; deportations, 1.7 million (out of 7.5 million deported); and POWs and German civilians, 1 million - a total of about 9 million victims of repression.

Some historians have also included the 6 to 8 million victims of the 1932-33 famine as victims of repression.[62][63][64] This categorization is controversial however, as historians differ as to whether the famine was a deliberate part of the campaign of repression against kulaks or simply an unintended consequence of the struggle over forced collectivization. (See also: Droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR).

Regardless, it appears that a minimum of around 10 million surplus deaths (4 million by repression and 6 million from famine) are attributable to the regime, with a number of recent books suggesting a likely total of around 20 million.[65][66][67][68][69] Adding 6-8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Pioneering researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[70] Others, however, continue to maintain that their earlier much higher estimates are correct.[71]

[quirk]

Fraud, Famine and Fascism
http://rationalrevolution.net/special/library/famine.htm

The best book for demolishing the Ukrainian famine myth however the following papers by Mark B. Tauger are also excellent.

http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/soviet.htm

Also for those who claim that Stalin was in complete control of the USSR I suggest they read the article Stalin and the struggle for democratic reform by Grover Furr.

Part 1 (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html)
Part 2 (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr2.html)

It also has some intresting information about the purges.

[Lobo1888]

60 million dead, in addition to 25 million during WWII would leave only 45 million people in the USSR in 1945. Even bourgeois historians are admiting that the last decades of academic work on Stalin are of little value and in some cases the sources contained within orginate from Fascist collaborators that fled - Robert Conquest is notorious for using Ukrianian Fascists as primary sources.

Ow, I forgot to add war, anyway, my friend read many books about Stalin. This number seemed imposible to me when he mentioned it, but he says that is over 20 million definetly (war exluded). And the books were editions from the time of socialist Yugoslavia (facist authors excluded).
Anyway here's Stalin's famous quote "A single death is a tragedy, and million deaths is a statistic".

[Vox Populi]

The Moscow archive proves consistently that the Gulag was reserved only for political opponents, espically fascists like Alexander Solzhenitsyn who is revered today in the west. The figures of those within the Gulag are freely avialable on the internet. They are quite a lot more reliable than CIA estimates.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

Mao's "Great Leap Forwars" and "Cultural Revolution"

Great Leap Forward
Main article: Great Leap Forward
In January 1958, Mao launched the second Five-Year Plan known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people's communes, and many of the peasants ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and the small-scale production of iron and steel. All private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.

Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the diversion of labour to steel production and infrastructure projects and the reduced personal incentives under a commune system this led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by further 10% reduction in 1960 and no recovery in 1961. In an effort to win favour with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them and based on the fabricated success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of the true harvest for state use primarily in the cities and urban areas but also for export. The net result, which was compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that the rural peasants were not left enough to eat and many millions starved to death in what is thought to be the largest famine in human history. This famine was a direct cause of the death of tens of millions of Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962. Further, many children who became emaciated and malnourished during years of hardship and struggle for survival, died shortly after the Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962 (Spence, 553).

The extent of Mao's knowledge as to the severity of the situation has been disputed. According to some, most notably Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao was not aware of anything more than a mild food and general supply shortage until late 1959.

"But I do not think that when he spoke on July 2, 1959, he knew how bad the disaster had become, and he believed the party was doing everything it could to manage the situation"
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, in Mao: the Unknown Story, alleged that Mao knew of the vast suffering and that he was dismissive of it, blaming bad weather or other officials for the famine.

"Although slaughter was not his purpose with the Leap, he was more than ready for myriad deaths to result, and hinted to his top echelon that they should not be too shocked if they happened (438-439)."
Whatever the case, the Great Leap Forward led to millions of deaths in China. Mao lost esteem among many of the top party cadres and was eventually forced to abandon the policy in 1962, also losing some political power to moderate leaders, notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. However, Mao and national propaganda claimed that he was only partly to blame. As a result, he was able to remain Chairman of the Communist Party, with the Presidency transferred to Liu Shaoqi.

The Great Leap Forward was a disaster for China. Although the steel quotas were officially reached, almost all of it made in the countryside was useless lumps of iron, as it had been made from assorted scrap metal in home made furnaces with no reliable source of fuel such as coal. According to Zhang Rongmei, a geometry teacher in rural Shanghai during the Great Leap Forward:

We took all the furniture, pots, and pans we had in our house, and all our neighbors did likewise. We put all everything in a big fire and melted down all the metal.
Moreover, most of the dams, canals and other infrastructure projects, which millions of peasants and prisoners had been forced to toil on and in many cases die for, proved useless as they had been built without the input of trained engineers, whom Mao had rejected on ideological grounds.


Mao, shown here with Henry Kissinger and Zhou Enlai.In the Party Congress at Lushan in July/August 1959, several leaders expressed concern that the Great Leap Forward was not as successful as planned. The most direct of these was Minister of Defence and Korean War General Peng Dehuai. Mao, fearing loss of his position, orchestrated a purge of Peng and his supporters, stifling criticism of the Great Leap policies.

There is a great deal of controversy over the number of deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward. Until the mid 1980s, when official census figures were finally published by the Chinese Government, little was known about the scale of the disaster in the Chinese countryside, as the handful of Western observers allowed access during this time had been restricted to model villages where they were deceived into believing that Great Leap Forward had been a great success. There was also an assumption that the flow of individual reports of starvation that had been reaching the West, primarily through Hong Kong and Taiwan, must be localised or exaggerated as China was continuing to claim record harvests and was a net exporter of grain through the period. Censuses were carried out in China in 1953, 1964 and 1982. The first attempt to analyse this data in order to estimate the number of famine deaths was carried out by American demographer Dr Judith Banister and published in 1984. Given the lengthy gaps between the censuses and doubts over the reliability of the data, an accurate figure is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, Banister concluded that the official data implied that around 15 million excess deaths incurred in China during 1958-61 and that based on her modelling of Chinese demographics during the period and taking account of assumed underreporting during the famine years, the figure was around 30 million. The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by Hu Yaobang.[30] Various other sources have put the figure between 20 and 72 million.[2]

On the international front, the period was dominated by the further isolation of China, due to start of the Sino-Soviet split which resulted in Khrushchev withdrawing all Soviet technical experts and aid from the country. The split was triggered by border disputes, and arguments over the control and direction of world communism, and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy. Most of the problems regarding communist unity resulted from the death of Stalin and his replacement by Khrushchev. Stalin had established himself as the successor of "correct" Marxist thought well before Mao controlled the Communist Party of China, and therefore Mao never challenged the suitability of any Stalinist doctrine (at least while Stalin was alive). Upon the death of Stalin, Mao believed (perhaps because of seniority) that the leadership of the "correct" Marxist doctrine would fall to him. The resulting tension between Khrushchev (at the head of a politically/militarily superior government), and Mao (believing he had a superior understanding of Marxist ideology) eroded the previous patron-client relationship between the CPSU and CPC. In China, the formerly favourable Soviets were now denounced as "revisionists" and listed alongside "American imperialism" as movements to oppose.

Partly-surrounded by hostile American military bases (reaching from South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, and Taiwan), China was now confronted with a new Soviet threat from the north and west. Both the internal crisis and the external threat called for extraordinary statesmanship from Mao, but as China entered the new decade the statesmen of the People's Republic were in hostile confrontation with each other.

At a large Communist Party conference in Beijing in January 1962, called the "Conference of the Seven Thousand," State President Liu Shaoqi denounced the Great Leap Forward as responsible for widespread famine.[31] The overwhelming majority of delegates expressed agreement, but Defense Minister Lin Biao staunchly defended Mao.[31] A brief period of liberalization followed while Mao and Lin plotted a comeback.[31] Liu and Deng Xiaoping rescued the economy by disbanding the people's communes, introducing elements of private control of peasant smallholdings and importing grain from Canada and Australia to mitigate the worst effects of famine.


[edit] Cultural Revolution
Main article: Cultural Revolution
Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping's prominence gradually became a challenge to Mao's position of power. Liu and Deng, then the State President and General Secretary, respectively, had favoured the idea that Mao should be removed from actual power but maintain his ceremonial and symbolic role, and the party will uphold all of his positive contributions to the revolution. They attempted to marginalize Mao by taking control of economic policy and asserting themselves politically as well.

Facing the prospect of losing his place on the political stage, Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Under the pretext that certain liberal "bourgeois" elements of society, labeled as class enemies, continue to threaten the socialist framework under the existing dictatorship of the proletariat, the idea that a Cultural Revolution must continue after armed struggle allowed Mao to circumvent the Communist hierarchy by giving power directly to the Red Guards, groups of young people, often teenagers, who set up their own tribunals. Chaos reigned over the country, and millions were prosecuted, including a famous philosopher, Chen Yuen. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao closed the schools in China and the young intellectuals living in cities were ordered to the countryside. They were forced to manufacture weapons for the Red Army. The Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number of Chinese citizens, as well as creating general economic and social chaos in the country. Millions of lives were ruined during this period, as the Cultural Revolution pierced into every part of Chinese life, depicted by such Chinese films as To Live, The Blue Kite and Farewell My Concubine. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, perished in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.[2] When Mao was informed of such losses, particularly that people had been driven to suicide, he blithely commented: "People who try to commit suicide - don't attempt to save them! . . . China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people."[32]


Mao greets United States President Richard Nixon (right) during his visit to China in 1972It was during this period that Mao chose Lin Biao, who seemed to echo all of Mao's ideas, to become his successor. Mao and Lin Biao formed an alliance leading up to the Cultural Revolution in order for the purges to succeed. Mao needed Lin's clout for his plan to work. In return, Lin was made Mao's successor. By 1971, however, because of Lin's grip over the military and Mao's own paranoia, a divide between the two men became clear, and it was unclear whether Lin was planning a military coup or an assassination attempt. Lin Biao died trying to flee China, probably anticipating his arrest, in a suspicious plane crash over Mongolia. It was declared that Lin was planning to depose Mao, and he was posthumously expelled from the CPC. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CPC figures. The highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa described his conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by KGB.[33]

In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over, although the official history of the People's Republic of China marks the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 with Mao's death. In the last years of his life, Mao was faced with declining health due to either Parkinson's disease or, according to Li Zhisui, motor neurone disease, as well as lung ailments due to smoking and heart trouble. Mao remained passive as various factions within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated after his death.

[Vox Populi]

With all respect, can you debate yourself instead of copying and pasting articles from the internet?

[Vox Populi]

The best book for demolishing the Ukrainian famine myth however the following papers by Mark B. Tauger are also excellent.

http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/soviet.htm

Also for those who claim that Stalin was in complete control of the USSR I suggest they read the article Stalin and the struggle for democratic reform by Grover Furr.

Part 1 (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html)
Part 2 (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr2.html)

It also has some intresting information about the purges.
Thanks. I hadn't come across those before.

Ow, I forgot to add war, anyway, my friend read many books about Stalin. This number seemed imposible to me when he mentioned it, but he says that is over 20 million definetly (war exluded). And the books were editions from the time of socialist Yugoslavia (facist authors excluded).
Anyway here's Stalin's famous quote "A single death is a tragedy, and million deaths is a statistic".
No worries. Yugoslavia however had a clear western, capitalist and imperialist agenda - espically in regards to Albania who they tried to subvert at every turn.

The quote from Stalin is found no where in his collected works or letters. There is no source for it whatsoever.

[quirk]

http://www.re-evaluationmao.org/didmaokill.htm

The above is an excellent article on the great leap forward.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

The Moscow archive proves consistently that the Gulag was reserved only for political opponents, espically fascists like Alexander Solzhenitsyn who is revered today in the west. The figures of those within the Gulag are freely avialable on the internet. They are quite a lot more reliable than CIA estimates.


Even if it was only limited to (which I don't believe) political opponents does it make it any less wrong? You have Soviet historical records confirming many, many attrocities?

You know if this happend under a fascist regime you socialists and communists would be (and do) yelling from the rooftops about it. Even if it was only 100 killed or 10 killed for their leftwing political beliefs you'd be making a big deal about it. Why then, is this acceptible? Does socialist revolutionary ideals justify mass murder?

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

I revere Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn too. He's a good man and a true Russian nationalist and a very honest man. Many in the former Soviet Union respect him.

[Vox Populi]

Even if it was only limited to (which I don't believe) political opponents does it make it any less wrong? You have Soviet historical records confirming many, many attrocities?

You know if this happend under a fascist regime you socialists and communists would be (and do) yelling from the rooftops about it. Even if it was only 100 killed or 10 killed for their leftwing political beliefs you'd be making a big deal about it. Why then, is this acceptible? Does socialist revolutionary ideals justify mass murder?
People like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who today enjoys celebrity status in the west, were sent to labour camps for distributing pro-Hitler propaganda on the eve of the German invasion. In any other country, those who engage in activity like that are sentanced to lengthy prison spells often including forced labour. It's just convenient that it's Russia.

54% of people questioned in a poll in Russia believe Stalin did more good than bad, these are the people, the sons and daughters that are said to have "suffered".

[quirk]

I revere Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn too. He's a good man and a true Russian nationalist and a very honest man. Many in the former Soviet Union respect him.

He is a fascist.

[Vox Populi]

I would recommend this a chara - http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/lies/node8.html

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

If you folks truly believe this then you don't fight for freedom. You fight to replace a tyranny with tyranny. I apologize if you find that statement offensive. I think authoritarianism in any form whether capitalist or communist is a bad thing. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

Why do you think I oppose the Big Government policies of both neo-conservative Republicans and the quasi socialist Democrats? I don't want my government falling into authoritarianism of any flag.

[quirk]

Do you know Jimmy that there is more people per head of population in jail in the USA today than there ever was in the Soviet Union during the time of Stalin, including during world war 2.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

Do you know Jimmy that there is more people per head of population in jail in the USA today than there ever was in the Soviet Union during the time of Stalin, including during world war 2.

I know and I object to the so called "war on drugs" that has caused the US prison populations to swell. We have laws upon laws here in the States. Many unconstitutional laws at that and media driven "unjustice" not unlike the lynch mobs of old. The media in the States seems to only exist to instill fear in people so they can no longer make rational, just decisions.

I have much criticism of my own government and the path that it's on and of my own countrymen who've bought into the politics of fear throwing away their Constitutional rights in the name of security.

[Lobo1888]

Anyway, there was no perfect socialist state, and Soviet Union wasn't a place of desire especially during the reign of comrade Stalin.
And I'm sick of watching any opposition of communism to be called a facist. There are hundreds of ideologies on this world, not just capitalist, facist or socialist (which is not equal to communist).
And name me one communist country that had a normal life standard equal to western capitalist countries. There isn't any! Communism, atheist dictatorship, facism, nazism, stalinism, etc. had nothing to do with socialism, especially with reformed one. Pure capitalism is also evil.
Why not taking the best of everything?

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

I found some interesting things in regards to the Catholic faith of the great Irish Republican Socialist James Connolly

[edit] Personal religious beliefs
James Connolly's personal religious convictions are a matter of conjecture. In the only written record made by Connolly about his personal position in relation to Catholicism, he stated:

though I have usually posed as a Catholic, I have not done my duty for 15 years, and have not the slightest tincture of faith left…

– (Letter from James Connolly to John Carstairs Matheson, 30 January 1908)[2]

Labour, Nationality and Religion:

“ The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go. And in the work of abolishing it the Catholic and the Protestant, the Catholic and the Jew, the Catholic and the Freethinker, the Catholic and the Buddhist, the Catholic and the Mahometan will co-operate together, knowing no rivalry but the rivalry of endeavour toward an end beneficial to all. For, as we have said elsewhere, socialism is neither Protestant nor Catholic, Christian nor Freethinker, Buddhist, Mahometan, nor Jew; it is only Human. We of the socialist working class realise that as we suffer together we must work together that we may enjoy together. We reject the firebrand of capitalist warfare and offer you the olive leaf of brotherhood and justice to and for all. ”

An earlier work also published by the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP), called Socialism and Religion, where Connolly says of socialism:

“ We do not mean that its supporters are necessarily materialists in the vulgar, and merely anti-theological, sense of the term, but that they do not base their socialism upon any interpretation of the language or meaning of scripture, nor upon the real or supposed intentions of a beneficent Deity. They as a party neither affirm or deny those things, but leave it to the individual conscience of each member to determine what beliefs on such questions they shall hold. As a political party they wisely prefer to take their stand upon the actual phenomena of social life as they can be observed in operation amongst us to-day, or as they can be traced in the recorded facts of history ”

Scott Herbert, however, called him a "devout Catholic".[3] Father Aloysius in conversation to his daughter Nora:

“ It was a terrible shock to me, I'd been with him that evening and I promised to come to him this afternoon. I felt sure there would be no more executions. Your father was much easier than he had been. I was sure that he would get his first real night's rest. The ambulance that brought you home came for me. I was astonished. I had felt so sure that I would not be needed. For the first time since the Rising, I had locked the doors. And some time after two I was knocked up. The ambulance brought me to your father. Such a wonderful man - such a concentration of mind. They carried him from his bed in an ambulance stretcher down to a waiting ambulance and drove him to Kilmainham Jail. They carried him from the ambulance to the jail yard and put him in a chair. He was very brave and cool. I said to him, "Will you pray for the men who are about to shoot you" and he said: "I will say a prayer for all brave men who do their duty." His prayer was "Forgive them for they know not what they do" and then they shot him.[4] ”

Selected extracts from the personal recollections of Father Aloysius OFM. Cap.[5]

“ Monday May 1st
Early in the morning the son of Superintendent Dunne (DMP) a subdeacon, called to me and said that Father Murphy, the military chaplain, had sent him to ask if I could call to the Castle during the afternoon. James Connolly, who was a prisoner and a patient there, had expressed a wish to see me. I called, and saw Father Murphy. He told me that he had arranged for the necessary permissions. With Captain Stanley, RAMC, I went to the ward. At the door the sentry challenged Captain Stanley and informed him he had orders to allow no one to see the prisoner without special instructions. Captain Stanley was obliged to return for his permit. The sentry asked me if I were Father Aloysius and, on my replying in the affirmative said: 'You can go in.' However, as the nurses were engaged with Connolly, I delayed outside until they had finished and Captain Stanley had returned.

I entered with Captain Stanley, but I remarked that two soldiers with rifles and bayonets were on guard and showed no intention of leaving. I point out this to Captain Stanley, but he said it was necessary that they should remain; that he had no power to remove them. Then I said: 'If that is so I cannot do my work as a priest. I have never before, to my knowledge spoken to James Connolly. I cannot say if he may not be hard of hearing. Confession is an important and sacred duty that demands privacy and I cannot go on with it in the presence of these men.' I had given my word that I would not utilise the opportunity for carrying political information or as a cover for political designs, and if my word was not sufficient or reliable they had better get some other priest. But I felt quite confident I would have my way.
”
“ Tuesday 2nd
In the morning I gave Holy Communion to James Connolly. Later in the day I went with Father Augustine to Headquarters, Infirmary Road and met General (Sir John) Maxwell....

When I reached Kilmainham Gaol I was informed that Thomas MacDonagh also wished for my ministrations. I was taken to the prisoners' cells and spent some hours between the two. "You will be glad to know that I gave Holy Communion to James Connolly this morning," I said to Pearse when I met him. "Thank God," he replied, "it is the one thing I was anxious about."
”
“ Thursday afternoon
Called to the Castle to see Connolly. Connolly had not slept and seemed feverish. I said that I would let him rest and would called in morning to give him Holy Communion. Uneasy about him I tried to get contact with Captain Stanley, but he could not be found. Reached Castle gates, and, still uneasy, decided to return and make another attempt to see Stanley. Saw him and was assured that there was no danger of any steps being taken; he reminded me that Asquith had given to understand that no executions would take place pending debate which was on that night. Got back to Church Street some time near 7 pm. About 9 pm Captain Stanley called and told me that my services would be required about 2 am. He was not at liberty to say more but I could understand.
”
“ Friday Morning, 12th
About 1 am car called and Father Sebastian accompanied me to Castle. Heard Connolly's confession and gave him Holy Communion. Waited in Castle Yard while he was being given a meal. He was brought down and laid on stretcher in ambulance. Father Sebastian and myself drove with him to Kilmainham. Stood behind firing party during the execution. Father Eugene McCarthy, who had attended Sean MacDermott before we arrived, remained and anointed Connolly immediately after the shooting.
”

Three months after James Connolly's execution his wife Lillie (née Lillie Reynolds, a domestic servant from Co Wicklow) was received into the Catholic Church, at Church St. on the 15th of August[6]

Interestingly, whilst in the United States where he had joined the Socialist Labour Party in 1903, he clashed with that party's leader Daniel De Leon who called Connolly, amongst other things, a "Jesuit spy" [7]

[quirk]

Anyway, there was no perfect socialist state, and Soviet Union wasn't a place of desire especially during the reign of comrade Stalin.
And I'm sick of watching any opposition of communism to be called a facist. There are hundreds of ideologies on this world, not just capitalist, facist or socialist (which is not equal to communist).
And name me one communist country that had a normal life standard equal to western capitalist countries. There isn't any! Communism, atheist dictatorship, facism, nazism, stalinism, etc. had nothing to do with socialism, especially with reformed one. Pure capitalism is also evil.
Why not taking the best of everything?


Of course there is no perfect socialist state and no one has suggested otherwise. However the achievements made under socialism were massive. Also when examining socialism you cannot do so in isolation or merely compare it to capitalist countries which had a head start on it. You have to examine the what socialism was born out of and base your conclusions on this. To say for example that the USSR had not as good a living standard as the USA without failing to understand what was the starting position (Russia after the first world war) is the wrong way to approach it.

As for calling people a fascist I think you must be referring to Solzhenitsyn. While I agree with you that everyone who opposes Socialism is not a fascist, Solzhenitsyn was.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

Quirk, what is your proof that Solzhenitsyn was a fascist? Was this based on KGB reports?

Solzhenitsyn was first sent to the labour camps in 1945 while serving as a commander of a Soviet artillery unit in East Prussia. Stalin accused many people of being fascists. Especially soldiers who had contact with Germans.

[quirk]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Another person who is always associated with books and articles on the supposed millions who lost their lives or liberty in the Soviet Union is the Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn became famous throughout the capitalist world towards the end of 1960 with his book, The Gulag Archipelago. He himself had been sentenced in 1946 to 8 years in a labour camp for counter-revolutionary activity in the form of distribution of anti-Soviet propaganda. According to Solzhenitsyn, the fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War could have been avoided if the Soviet government had reached a compromise with Hitler. Solzhenitsyn also accused the Soviet government and Stalin of being even worse than Hitler from the point of view, according to him, of the dreadful effects of the war on the people of the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn did not hide his Nazi sympathies. He was condemned as a traitor.

Solzhenitsyn began in 1962 to publish books in the Soviet Union with the consent and help of Nikita Khrushchev. The first book he published was A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, concerning the life of a prisoner. Khrushchev used Solzhenitsyn’s texts to combat Stalin’s socialist heritage. In 1970 Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature with his book The Gulag Archipelago. His books then began to be published in large quantities in capitalist countries, their author having become one of the most valuable instruments of imperialism in combating the socialism of the Soviet Union. His texts on the labour camps were added to the propaganda on the millions who were supposed to have died in the Soviet Union and were presented by the capitalist mass media as though they were true. In 1974, Solzhenitsyn renounced his Soviet citizenship and emigrated to Switzerland and then the US. At that time he was considered by the capitalist press to be the greatest fighter for freedom and democracy. His Nazi sympathies were buried so as not to interfere with the propaganda war against socialism.

In the US, Solzhenitsyn was frequently invited to speak at important meetings. He was, for example, the main speaker at the AFL-CIO union congress in 1975, and on 15 July 1975 he was invited to give a lecture on the world situation to the US Senate! His lectures amount to violent and provocative agitation, arguing and propagandising for the most reactionary positions. Among other things he agitated for Vietnam to be attacked again after its victory over the US. And more: after 40 years of fascism in Portugal, when left-wing army officers took power in the people’s revolution of 1974, Solzhenitsyn began to propagandise in favour of US military intervention in Portugal which, according to him, would join the Warsaw Pact if the US did not intervene! In his lectures, Solzhenitsyn always bemoaned the liberation of Portugal’s African colonies.

But it is clear that the main thrust of Solzhenitsyn’s speeches was always the dirty war against socialism - from the alleged execution of several million people in the Soviet Union to the tens of thousands of Americans supposedly imprisoned and enslaved, according to Solzhenitsyn, in North Vietnam! This idea of Solzhenitsyn’s of Americans being used as slave labour in North Vietnam gave rise to the Rambo films on the Vietnam war. American journalists who dared write in favour of peace between the US and the Soviet Union were accused by Solzhenitsyn in his speeches of being potential traitors. Solzhenitsyn also propagandised in favour of increasing US military capacity against the Soviet Union, which he claimed was more powerful in ‘tanks and aeroplanes, by five to seven times, than the US’ as well as in atomic weapons which ‘in short’ he alleged were ‘two, three or even five times’ more powerful in the Soviet Union than those held by the US. Solzhenitsyn’s lectures on the Soviet Union represented the voice of the extreme right. But he himself went even further to the right in his public support of fascism.

Support for Franco’s fascism

After Franco died in 1975, the Spanish fascist regime began to lose control of the political situation and at the beginning of 1976, events in Spain captured world public opinion. There were strikes and demonstrations to demand democracy and freedom, and Franco’s heir, King Juan Carlos, was obliged very cautiously to introduce some liberalisation in order to calm down the social agitation.

At this most important moment in Spanish political history, Alexander Solzhenitsyn appears in Madrid and gives an interview to the programme Directísimo one Saturday night, the 20th of March, at peak viewing time (see the Spanish newspapers, ABC and Ya of 21 March 1976). Solzhenitsyn, who had been provided with the questions in advance, used the occasion to make all kinds of reactionary statements. His intention was not to support the King’s so-called liberalisation measures. On the contrary, Solzhenitsyn warned against democratic reform. In his television interview he declared that 110 million Russians had died the victims of socialism, and he compared ‘the slavery to which Soviet people were subjected to the freedom enjoyed in Spain’. Solzhenitsyn also accused ‘progressive circles’ of ‘Utopians’ of considering Spain to be a dictatorship. By ‘progressive’, he meant anyone in the democratic opposition – were they liberals, social-democrats or communists. ‘Last autumn,’ said Solzhenitsyn, ‘world public opinion was worried about the fate of Spanish terrorists [i.e., Spanish anti-fascists sentenced to death by the Franco regime]. All the time progressive public opinion demands democratic political reform while supporting acts of terrorism’. ‘Those who seek rapid democratic reform, do they realise what will happen tomorrow or the day after? In Spain there may be democracy tomorrow, but after tomorrow will it be able to avoid falling from democracy into totalitarianism?’ To cautious inquiries by the journalists as to whether such statements could not be seen as support for regimes in countries where there was no liberty, Solzhenitsyn replied: ‘I only know one place where there is no liberty and that is Russia.’ Solzhenitsyn’s statements on Spanish television were a direct support to Spanish fascism, an ideology he supports to this day. This is one of the reasons why Solzhenitsyn began to disappear from public view in his 18 years of exile in the US, and one of the reasons he began to get less than total support from capitalist governments. For the capitalists it was a gift from Heaven to be able to use a man like Solzhenitsyn in their dirty war against socialism, but everything has its limits. In the new capitalist Russia, what determines the support of the west for political groups is purely and simply the ability of doing good business with high profits under the wing of such groups. Fascism as an alternative political regime for Russia is not considered to be good for business. For this reason Solzhenitsyn’s political plans for Russia are a dead letter as far as Western support is concerned. What Solzhenitsyn wants for Russia’s political future is a return to the authoritarian regime of the Tsars, hand-in-hand with the traditional Russian Orthodox Church! Even the most arrogant imperialists are not interested in supporting political stupidity of this magnitude. To find anyone who supports Solzhenitsyn in the West one has to search among the dumbheads of the extreme right.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/lies/node8.html

[quirk]

About Stalin and Mao. Both of them were crazy, however Mao was better.

Why do you suggest that both these men were crazy? In my opinion they remained perfectly sane throughout their lives and I have seen no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Stalin was an enemy of soviet people, in 30ies he by his command over half of his best officers were executed. Read about Great Purge!

He was not an enemy of the Soviet people but an enemy of counter revolutionaries and reactionaries within the Soviet Union. The Tukhachevsky trial revealed that their was a wide spread and real conspiracy within both the army and police and so action was indeed necessary. Indeed at the time this was widely accepted even amongst the enemies of the USSR:

`(T)he best judgment seems to believe that in all probability there was a definite conspiracy in the making looking to a coup d'état by the army --- not necessarily anti-Stalin, but antipolitical and antiparty, and that Stalin struck with characteristic speed, boldness and strength.'
The U.S. Ambassador Moscow, Joseph Davies

The Russian Army was purged of its pro-German elements at a heavy cost to its military efficiency.
Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), pp. 288--289.

The historian J Arch Getty has done much research on this subject and the following is his opinion:

Contrary, then, to those who argue that the conspiracies were phantoms of Stalin's paranoid mind -- or worse still, lies concocted to strengthen Stalin's megalomaniac hold on power -- there is a lot of evidence that real conspiracies existed. Accounts of conspirators who were later able to get out of the USSR agree. The sheer volume of police documentation concerning such conspiracies, only a little of which has yet been published, argues strongly against any notion that all of it could have been fabricated. Furthermore, Stalin's annotations on these documents make it clear that he believed they were accurate. Getty, "Excesses" 131-4; Lubianka B

Then, his awful agricultural policy, result was Great Ukrainian hunger in 1932.

While the collectivisation of agriculture and the resistance to it by the Kulaks and other reactionaries did in fact contribute to the extent of the famine they were not the main cause of it. 1930,1931 and 1932 saw severe drought within the Ukraine and this was the main cause of the famine. Also the claim that this was attempted genocide against the Ukrainians ignores the fact that the same year saw famine in other parts of the Soviet Union. Commenting on the fact that the Russian regions of Lower Volga and North Caucasus were also effected by famine Dr. Hans Blumenfeld, internationally respected city planner and recipient of the Order of Canada, who worked as an architect in Makayevka, Ukraine during the famine stated:

This disproves the ``fact'' of anti-Ukrainian genocide parallel to Hitler's anti-semitic holocaust. To anyone familiar with the Soviet Union's desperate manpower shortage in those years, the notion that its leaders would deliberately reduce that scarce resource is absurd ....'

He also said the following in relation to the causes of death in the Ukraine at the time:

`There is no doubt that the famine claimed many victims. I have no basis on which to estimate their number .... Probably most deaths in 1933 were due to epidemics of typhus, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Waterborne diseases were frequent in Makeyevka; I narrowly survived an attack of typhus fever.'

It must be noted that the collectivisation of agriculture meant that in future enough excess food was produced that it could be stored away to prevent famines resulting from bad harvests as it did in the Ukranian famine and had always done. Collectivisation solved the food problem.

Before, during and after the war there were numerous executions of Trockists, old Leninists, reformed socialists, POWs, and "unwanted" ethnic groups like Jews, Germans, Finns, Ukrainians, Poles, Koreans, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Finns, Lithuanians, Estonians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Latvians, and Siberians.

There was the execution of counter revolutionaries and reactionaries and yes there may have been excesses an that is regrettable. To claim that their was unwanted ethnic groups is just propaganda. If you really believe this then can you answer the following:

Why would they want to just execute people when they were so short of manpower?

How come people from all these groups were members of the communist party?

If they wanted to wipe out these groups then why do they still exist? It is claimed that "Stalin wiped out 60% (15 million) Ukranians" in the famine. So why was it then that in the remaining 20 years of his life he was unable to kill the remaining 10 million?

Due to massive deportations, assassinations, hunger, forced labor, massive executions, some count even 60 million dead!
He was poisoned in the end.

That's just a bizarre estimate and the fact that the estimates vary so vastly illustrates that they are based on nothing more than the deluded imagination of bourgeois propagandists .

[Lobo1888]

Ok, 60 million is too high number, but seriously mate, are you trying to defend this lunatic?
Stalin was a f*cking georgian version of Hitler, and his reign was reign of terror!!!

My father worked in USSR in 1989, he was in Novosibirsk installing some computers. He told me about KGB, poverty and how very young girls stood dressed in some mini skirts on the winter waiting for some western engineer to pick them up. Total destruction of morale. They were doing anything for a few dollars, their parents encouraged them to do so, and KGB and policemen would take percentage. These are friends of working class?!?!

Entire Eastern blok was so poor that moral values are on the bottom! Besides trafficking, it's really sad to see young girls selling their bodies by free will. 80% of kids in Russia want to be in mafia, and 70% girls want to earn money as expensive hookers (by polls in the schools)!!!

GREAT F*CKiNG COMMUNISM, Stalin was a monster!!! Why are some people on this forum defending tyrants and claim that clergy, nationalists, democrats, or anyone else who oppose atheist totalitarian system are facist!?

[quirk]

Ok, 60 million is too high number, but seriously mate, are you trying to defend this lunatic?
Stalin was a f*cking georgian version of Hitler, and his reign was reign of terror!!!

I think we need to move beyond emotions and gut reflexes and examine the evidence. In my opinion that evidence shows clearly that the commonly held view of Stalin as the evil dictator is a completely wrong one which was purposely created by his political opponents as a means of undermining socialism. Its not about defending any one person but seeking to find the truth of the matter. I agree with the historian J. Arch Getty who has stated that historical research done in the period of the cold war is "products of propaganda". Getty himself is not a socialist yet he too is concerned at getting at the truth.

My father worked in USSR in 1989, he was in Novosibirsk installing some computers. He told me about KGB, poverty and how very young girls stood dressed in some mini skirts on the winter waiting for some western engineer to pick them up. Total destruction of morale. They were doing anything for a few dollars, their parents encouraged them to do so, and KGB and policemen would take percentage. These are friends of working class?!?!

Entire Eastern blok was so poor that moral values are on the bottom! Besides trafficking, it's really sad to see young girls selling their bodies by free will. 80% of kids in Russia want to be in mafia, and 70% girls want to earn money as expensive hookers (by polls in the schools)!!!

I don't seek to defend any of this as after the revisionist seizure of power after the death of Stalin the Soviet Union was transferred back into a capitalist state and was certainly capitalist in the period of which you speak.

GREAT F*CKiNG COMMUNISM, Stalin was a monster!!! Why are some people on this forum defending tyrants and claim that clergy, nationalists, democrats, or anyone else who oppose atheist totalitarian system are facist!?

I am not just defending him for no reason but because the evidence suggests that the assertions being made against him are in the most part untrue. I have gave reasons for why I think what I do yet you have not addressed this. As for calling people fascist I have previously stated that I do not think all who oppose socialism are fascist yet I do believe Solzhenitsyn was one.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

Quirk I would have to say that you're a reasonable man in your responses. That's why I like discussing things here. There's no childish name calling like in other forums. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on these things. You have your religion (Marxism) and I have mine (Catholicism). Just as long as it doesn't come to anti-clerical pogroms I think it will be all right between guys like us. It is nice to know that we can have a civil discussion about these things though.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

Ok, 60 million is too high number, but seriously
Entire Eastern blok was so poor that moral values are on the bottom! Besides trafficking, it's really sad to see young girls selling their bodies by free will. 80% of kids in Russia want to be in mafia, and 70% girls want to earn money as expensive hookers (by polls in the schools)!!!


When I was in Uzbekistan over the summer there were young Uzbek women being kidnaped all over. My father in law was concerned about my wife's sister his youngest daughter. Teenage girls were disappearing right off the streets and even from schools. As the story goes the Uzbek mafia scum lost a card game to Kazakh mafia scum and the stakes was 500 young women preferably unmarried (virgins) and Muslim (I don't know what the significance of that was). It was common knowledge that the Uzbek police and military were in on the kidnappings so I'm guessing the government officials must have been paid off too. It's a ****in tragedy what happends to women in many of these countries. Especially Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. They usually end up in brothels in Amsterdam, London, Tel Aviv and in the US and Canada.

[Joseph Pariah]

David Cronenberg's new film Eastern Promises (well worth seeing by the way) exposes the fact that the slave trade is alive and well and is something Western society needs to face up to. The Vory V Zakone (Russian Mafia) actually considers these poor girls slaves and have been known to literally brand them in the past. Apparently the Vory tradition originated in prison camps shortly after the October Revolution. The NKVD and later the KGB were hugely successful against these animals and that's why (until the collapse of the USSR) they mainly operated outside of Russia.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

David Cronenberg's new film Eastern Promises (well worth seeing by the way) exposes the fact that the slave trade is alive and well and is something Western society needs to face up to. The Vory V Zakone (Russian Mafia) actually considers these poor girls slaves and have been known to literally brand them in the past. Apparently the Vory tradition originated in prison camps shortly after the October Revolution. The NKVD and later the KGB were hugely successful against these animals and that's why (until the collapse of the USSR) they mainly operated outside of Russia.

I don't know much about the Vory, but I do know about the Uzbek mafia. Most of them came to power running the Blackmarket racket before the fall of the Soviet Union. After the fall they moved into government positions where they could easily shake people down. When I was over there I heard on serveral occasions that the mafia became the government.

[Vox Populi]

Excellent contributions all. A very good and enlighening debate so far.

[KillinSnakes]

The Catholic Church isn't hailing any combatants as martyrs. The priests were non-combatant. They were slaughtered for the same reasons the Soviets persecuted the faithful within the Russian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church and the Muslim religion.

The Russian Orthodox Church is without a doubt responsible for the mass pogroms against Jews during Tsarist rule and the Civil War - very similar to what Nationalists were subjected to in the 6c statelet. If you have a problem with repressing these folks, I find that very troubling.

Any group carrying on that way would be repressed by any democratic state, as its activities are a threat to that society.

What makes the Church so special? why should it be exempt from the rules the rest of us must to live by?

More importantly, why is the right of the church (or any other band of reactionary criminals) to call for the slaughter of the innocent more important to you than the right of minorities to live in peace?


It is for this reason that I could never truly support those who's ideology is for the creation of an "authoritarian" socialist state. Inevitably what will follow the creation of such a state is a political/ideological cleansing of all dissenting opinion. That happend under the Soviets, the Cultural Revolution in the Peoples Republic of China, and to my family under the revolutionary government in Mexico.

This kind of thinking is deeply ahistorical and idealist. It is not just the ideology that is the factor in what kind of state arises, but the conditions of the time.

No movement is exempt from this:

The church of England in the young USA was immediately suppressed after the success of American independence; it's land and all its wealth were redistributed. 1/3 of the early US republic's population were British Loyalists (according to the Founding Fathers' estimates). So the democratic revolution in the USA was every bit as "authoritarian" as the Reds. Yet I don't see reactionaries bringing that up. That says a lot about what it takes to make a revolution, rather than how bloodthirsty or "authoritarian" the Reds are.

[KillinSnakes]

I've seen some on here bangng on about the numbers killed by socialist states. Yet even if those inflated numbers were correct, they would be nothing compared to the slaughter capitalism creates in its normal workings.

A good way to study this is to look at the overthrow of the USSR and the imposition of the market system there: milliions died as a result of this. That is undeniable. The rights of women, workers and minorities plummeted. Ethnic hatred and fascism are now more popular there than anywhere else. Yet you rarely hear anyone draw the obvious conclusion: capitalism is inherently more murderous and barbaric than socialism.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

The Russian Orthodox Church is without a doubt responsible for the mass pogroms against Jews during Tsarist rule and the Civil War - very similar to what Nationalists were subjected to in the 6c statelet. If you have a problem with repressing these folks, I find that very troubling.

Any group carrying on that way would be repressed by any democratic state, as its activities are a threat to that society.

What makes the Church so special? why should it be exempt from the rules the rest of us must to live by?

More importantly, why is the right of the church (or any other band of reactionary criminals) to call for the slaughter of the innocent more important to you than the right of minorities to live in peace?



This kind of thinking is deeply ahistorical and idealist. It is not just the ideology that is the factor in what kind of state arises, but the conditions of the time.

No movement is exempt from this:

The church of England in the young USA was immediately suppressed after the success of American independence; it's land and all its wealth were redistributed. 1/3 of the early US republic's population were British Loyalists (according to the Founding Fathers' estimates). So the democratic revolution in the USA was every bit as "authoritarian" as the Reds. Yet I don't see reactionaries bringing that up. That says a lot about what it takes to make a revolution, rather than how bloodthirsty or "authoritarian" the Reds are.



I'd have to look into it more, but what happend to the Church of England here in the States is not even comparable to what happend in revolutionary Mexico, Russia, Spain, China. Yes there were those in the Russian Orthodox Church responsible for the pogroms against the Jews. The pogroms against the Jews didn't stop with the Soviet Revolution so it couldn't have been the Russian Church alone responsible for the pogroms.

I think all of us who hold freedom and sovereignty in a high regard must reject authoritarianism whether left wing authoritarianism or right wing authoritarianism. To me there's no difference you go far enough the right and you'll find Joseph Stalin (because you'll meet the authoritarian right) you go far enough to the left and you'll meet (Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet).

The predominant religious establishment that is intertwined with the culture of a nation is very important to that nation. I can't imagine Ireland, Italy, Poland, Phillipines, Spain or Latin America without the Roman Catholic Church. It's become part our culture, "Our Lady of Guadalupe" is a national symbol in Mexico. When destroy the Church in a nation I think you crush part of that nation's soul. Even Stalin knew that he needed the Church when WWII broke out. This is not being said to excuse the crimes of clergy. I'm just saying when it comes to the Church crimes must be dealt with on an individual level. You can't murder priests and nuns and burn many church's to the ground because of a "bad bishop". That's all I'm saying.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

correction...if you go far enough to the right you'll find Joseph Stalin (because you'll meet the authoritarian left).

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

People need hope. No political ideology can provide what's necessary to sustain the hope that people find in their religious faith. Over the summer when I was in the former Soviet Union I found that most everyone I met never lost their faith in God. Both Uzbek and Russian, Muslim and Christian alike in Uzbekistan found hope in the faith of their ancestors.

[KillinSnakes]

I think all of us who hold freedom and sovereignty in a high regard must reject authoritarianism whether left wing authoritarianism or right wing authoritarianism. To me there's no difference you go far enough the right and you'll find Joseph Stalin (because you'll meet the authoritarian right) you go far enough to the left and you'll meet (Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet).

I think the problem with your description of what is authoritarian is the same flaw that runs through all of liberalism: selectively defining what is authoritarian. I'd consider the USA, a state founded on slavery and imperialism to be more authoritarian than the USSR was, despite it's adoption of a formal democratic procedure. But all liberals would argue the opposite.


I'm just saying when it comes to the Church crimes must be dealt with on an individual level. You can't murder priests and nuns and burn many church's to the ground because of a "bad bishop". That's all I'm saying.

I'd agree with you there. In fact, I'd go further and point out that some clergy, including bishops have sided with the people against the capitalists and landed oligarchs, especially in latin america and a few times in the USA recently.

[ciaranxavier]

I'd have to look into it more, but what happend to the Church of England here in the States is not even comparable to what happend in revolutionary Mexico, Russia, Spain, China. Yes there were those in the Russian Orthodox Church responsible for the pogroms against the Jews. The pogroms against the Jews didn't stop with the Soviet Revolution so it couldn't have been the Russian Church alone responsible for the pogroms.

I think all of us who hold freedom and sovereignty in a high regard must reject authoritarianism whether left wing authoritarianism or right wing authoritarianism. To me there's no difference you go far enough the right and you'll find Joseph Stalin (because you'll meet the authoritarian right) you go far enough to the left and you'll meet (Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet).

The predominant religious establishment that is intertwined with the culture of a nation is very important to that nation. I can't imagine Ireland, Italy, Poland, Phillipines, Spain or Latin America without the Roman Catholic Church. It's become part our culture, "Our Lady of Guadalupe" is a national symbol in Mexico. When destroy the Church in a nation I think you crush part of that nation's soul. Even Stalin knew that he needed the Church when WWII broke out. This is not being said to excuse the crimes of clergy. I'm just saying when it comes to the Church crimes must be dealt with on an individual level. You can't murder priests and nuns and burn many church's to the ground because of a "bad bishop". That's all I'm saying.

wait wouldnt hitler be on the right and stalin on the left???? stalin was not a capitalist but he was half jew, even though he persecuted them.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

wait wouldnt hitler be on the right and stalin on the left???? stalin was not a capitalist but he was half jew, even though he persecuted them.

You right. Hitler on the far right and Stalin on the far left, but both authoritarian tyrants responsible for the deaths of millions.

[Jimmy Blackthorn]

That's interesting about Stalin being half Jew. They say Hitler had Jewish blood too.

[ciaranxavier]

You right. Hitler on the far right and Stalin on the far left, but both authoritarian tyrants responsible for the deaths of millions.

true but a good point was raised look at bush and the poverty he allows to run rampant through his country. just because hes not pulling the trigger he is in essence allowing their deaths to happen. without the american gov putting the proper programs in place for the people thousands will continue to die from lack of housing, food, and education being one of the most important. the fact that most in poverty are denied a proper education dooms them to die hungry and cold like their parents. although unlike stalin and hitler america isnt herding people into camps they are keeping them in low income areas. and although their not fenced off theres a slim chance of them moving to a higher area in life. wouldnt this be the same as what stalin and hitler did. neither of them pulled the triggers either it was their policys and motions that made the people do it. so do we hold bush responsible for all the deaths in the streets of america, for all the dead soldiers in iraq. because thats what youve done with hitler and stalin. and if you look at stalins secret police chief beria he did most of them without stalins approval. though stalins hands arent clean and neither are hitlers. im sure when bush is gone well find out what we all know and thats that the blood on his hands is just as bad.

[quirk]

wait wouldnt hitler be on the right and stalin on the left???? stalin was not a capitalist but he was half jew, even though he persecuted them.

As both of Stalin's parents Vissarion Jughashvili and Ekaterina Geladze were orthodox Christians how do you figure that he was half Jewish? As fo him persecuting Jews that is just not the case.

Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism. In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.
Stalin

[quirk]

although unlike stalin and hitler america isnt herding people into camps they are keeping them in low income areas.

But there are more people imprisoned per head in the USA today than there ever was in the Soviet Union. That is a fact.

[ciaranxavier]

As both of Stalin's parents Vissarion Jughashvili and Ekaterina Geladze were orthodox Christians how do you figure that he was half Jewish? As fo him persecuting Jews that is just not the case.

Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism. In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.
Stalin

if stalin hadnt died when he did he wouldve purged the jews. its fact read up on it. and last i heard orthodox christian isnt a race its a religion. im talking about ancestral bloodline and stalin was part jew. not that it matters but the fact is he was.

[quirk]

if stalin hadnt died when he did he wouldve purged the jews. its fact read up on it. and last i heard orthodox christian isnt a race its a religion. im talking about ancestral bloodline and stalin was part jew. not that it matters but the fact is he was.

Well you previously said that he was half Jew which implied that one of his parents was Jewish which is certainly not the case. Where have you read this as I have been trying to find something online which would back up what you claim but their seems to be no evidence that he did in fact have Jewish ancestors.

You have also claimed that is a fact that if Stalin had lived he would have purged the Jews. If it is a fact then their should be absolutely no problem providing me with reliable links to back up your claim. How can anyone know what he intended to do in the future?

[Joseph Pariah]

its fact read up on it.


I think it's abundantly clear that quirk is well read on Stalin. You, on the other hand, are not. Most of your claims about Stalin and what you perceive to be Communism is based on absolutely nothing. There has been a truck load of links to very informative articles and websites posted on this thread. Perhaps you should go and read some of them?

[ciaranxavier]

Well you previously said that he was half Jew which implied that one of his parents was Jewish which is certainly not the case. Where have you read this as I have been trying to find something online which would back up what you claim but their seems to be no evidence that he did in fact have Jewish ancestors.

You have also claimed that is a fact that if Stalin had lived he would have purged the Jews. If it is a fact then their should be absolutely no problem providing me with reliable links to back up your claim. How can anyone know what he intended to do in the future?

unlike you i dont get my info off the internet which is unreliable i read books. read krushchev speaks itll help you out a bit.

[ciaranxavier]

I think it's abundantly clear that quirk is well read on Stalin. You, on the other hand, are not. Most of your claims about Stalin and what you perceive to be Communism is based on absolutely nothing. There has been a truck load of links to very informative articles and websites posted on this thread. Perhaps you should go and read some of them?

im a worker and a father i have hardly enough time to read the articles you so freely shovel out. if i see it may be of interest to me ill breeze through it but i dont have the time to pick through articles on the internet. the only reason i have time to read is because i gotta take a crap at least once a day.

[quirk]

unlike you i dont get my info off the internet which is unreliable i read books. read krushchev speaks itll help you out a bit.

So you are relying on Khrushchev an enemy of Stalin and a proven liar on all things related to Stalin for your sources.:icon_lol: I will read it however could you point me to the page where it provides indisputable evidence (not his opinion) that Stalin planned to wipe out the Jews in the Soviet Union and also where it proves Stalin was part Jewish. I think however that is this was a fact their would be lots of evidence to support it online as well.

Also I have read many books about this subject and also alot on the internet, much of which is not available in hard copy.

[quirk]

A quick look at Khrushchev will show just what a liar he was. His so called "secret speech" at the 20th party congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is what a lot of people base their opposition to Stalin on and also it is from this speech that a lot of the myths and distortions have arisen. Many on the left took Khrushchev at his word for why in their opinion would he criticise a fellow communist in such a way unless it was true? I believe that he sought to dismantle Socialism in the USSR and being unable to do this directly he sought to do it by proxy by attacking the greatest upholder of Marxism - Leninism and using this as a spring board to attack the policies that Stalin upheld and supported throughout his life.

Indeed when the revisionists seized power completely at the congress in 1956 they did use this to begin to restore capitalism in the Soviet Union. The ground work was started under Khrushchev and the restoration was finally competed over a decade later when Brezhnev was in power. (The best examination of this is the book The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union by Bill Bland which can be read online here (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/wyl/hoxha/bland/index.html))

In reading the "secret speech" the venom with which he attacks Stalin leaves no one in doubt the Khrushchev was indeed an enemy of Stalin's and had been so for many years albeit a hidden enemy. Why then was Khrushchev one of the greatest proponents of the cult of personality, indeed him being the person who first used the word vohzd (leader) to refer to Stalin? Indeed why would another enemy of Stalin, Karl Radek be the person who initiated the cult? Stalin himself was in no doubt that the cult, which he opposed was being built up in order to knock him down at a later stage and to discredit him and indeed history has proven him correct.

So let us take a quick look at the "Secret Speech" which in fact tells us much more about Khrushchev than it does about Stalin. (The full text can be read here (http://www.uwm.edu/Course/448-343/index12.html)). By doing so it will be made abundantly clear that Nikita Khrushchev is not a source of reliable evidence and is nothing more than a liar.

Stalin over the years wrote a large amount of works (most can be found here (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/index.htm)) yet it is noteworthy that the secret speech did not try to criticise them or analyse them at all but instead sought to create lies and distortion about actions the Stalin supposedly carried out. Why do you think that Khrushchev shied away from a study and criticism of the works of Stalin?

Khrushchev claims in the secret speech that Stalin thought of himself as a "superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior." Indeed this myth is still prevalent today as has been clearly illustrated on this thread. Yet the above quote is shown for what it is when we look at what Stalin own words:

"And precisely in order that we may move forward and improve the relations between the masses and the leaders, we must keep the valve of self-criticism open all the time, we must make it possible for Soviet people to 'go for' their leaders, to criticize their mistakes, so that the leaders may not grow conceited and the masses may not get out of touch with the leaders." (1925 Report, p. 35, Vol. XI, Collected Works)

Here Stalin has called for people to criticise him and the other leaders.

Later in the speech when Khrushchev is emphasising claiming that Stalin was full of himself and had a "bragging tone" what does he provide us with to back up his claim. It is this quote from Stalin "…for every blow of the enemy we will answer with three blows." where he is not speaking personally but on behalf of the Soviet people (we). That's the depth of Khrushchev analysis for you.

"It would be incorrect to forget that after the first severe disaster and defeats at the front Stalin thought that this was the end. In one of those speeches in those days he said: 'All that Lenin created we have lost forever.'"

The above quote from the "secret speech" like almost everything else contained in it have no reference to sources. If Stalin did say this then why has he not provided us with a copy of this speech? He expects us just to believe what he says and the Bourgeoisie have jumped on it. We have all heard countless times this lie in one form or another, that Stalin was a broken man at the start of the second world war completely taken by surprise. Yet does this claim of Stalin "demoralized" not completely contradict his earlier claim of Stalin the "superman"?


But General Zhukov who we know was no friend of Stalin's paints a completely different picture in his memoirs both in relation to Stalin's preparednesses:

Stalin prepared the defence of the Soviet Union by having more than 9,000 factories built between 1928 and 1941 and by making the strategic decision to set up to the East a powerful industrial base.
memoirs p.137

In 1921, in almost all areas of military production, they had to start from nothing. During the years of the First and Second Five Year Plans, the Party had planned that the war industries would grow faster than other branches of industry.
p. 138

The annual production of tanks for 1930 was 740 units. It rose to 2,271 units in 1938.
p. 139.


For the same period, annual plane construction rose from 860 to 5,500 units.
p. 140

He also contradicts the claims that Stalin retreated to his Dacha drunk and a broken man:

`Stalin himself was strong-willed and no coward. It was only once I saw him somewhat depressed. That was at the dawn of June 22, 1941, when his belief that the war could be avoided, was shattered.'
p. 268

On June 22nd Stalin was commanding the defence of the Soviet Union not drunk in his dacha. On that day he phoned Zhukov to say:
`Our front commanders lack combat experience and they have evidently become somewhat confused. The Politbureau has decided to send you to the South-Western Front as representative of the General Headquarters of the High Command. We are also sending Marshal Shaposhnikov and Marshal Kulik to the Western Front.'
p. 238.


In the "Secret Speech" Khrushchev also refers to a book called the "Short Biography" of Stalin and he makes the following claim:

Here are some examples characterizing Stalin's activity, added in Stalin's own hand:

"'In this fight against the skeptics and capitulators, the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites and Kamenevites, there was definitely welded together, after Lenin's death, that leading core of the party... that upheld the great banner of Lenin, rallied the party behind Lenin's behests, and brought the Soviet people into the broad road of industrializing the country and collectivising the rural economy. The leader of this core and the guiding force of the party and the state was Comrade Stalin.'"

If you look again at the above quotation you will see 3 dots. What should have been there and what was left out so as to completely distort it is the following:

"…consisting of Stalin, Molotov, Kalinin, Voroshilov, Kuibyshev, Frunze, Dzerzhinsky, Kaganovitch Ordzdonikidze, Kirov, Yaroslavsky, Mikoyan, Andreyev, Shvernik, Zhdanov, Shriryatov and others."

This is how Khrushchev lied and distorted everything throughout the speech. indeed I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. This however is only the tip of the ice burg and I wont go into any more detail as I hope this is quite enough to prove that Khrushchev is certainly not a reliable source on the subject of Stalin.

[Joseph Pariah]

More than enough. :icon_lol:

[ciaranxavier]

So you are relying on Khrushchev an enemy of Stalin and a proven liar on all things related to Stalin for your sources.:icon_lol: I will read it however could you point me to the page where it provides indisputable evidence (not his opinion) that Stalin planned to wipe out the Jews in the Soviet Union and also where it proves Stalin was part Jewish. I think however that is this was a fact their would be lots of evidence to support it online as well.

Also I have read many books about this subject and also alot on the internet, much of which is not available in hard copy.

read it and youll get to the page i dont own it i read it.

[Joseph Pariah]

im a worker and a father i have hardly enough time to read the articles you so freely shovel out.


But it would seem you have the time to make uninformed posts about Stalin.

[ciaranxavier]

But it would seem you have the time to make uninformed posts about Stalin.

call them what you want. i dont see them as being uninformed but you would know wouldnt you godfather of stalin.

[Joseph Pariah]

:eusa_shifty:

[quirk]

read it and youll get to the page i dont own it i read it.

But do you still think we should take the word of Khrushchev in light of the previous evidence I have posted?