""Critically"" ""Evaluating"" Grover Furr's Blood Lies

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > ""Critically"" ""Evaluating"" Grover Furr's Blood Lies

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KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

So an important question. Has anyone located any mass graves from the era? Because that would be a pretty big slam dunk. Or does Russia not allow locating and excavating things like that?

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:00

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 11:41

OldMemes: Sep 5, 2011; I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Yeah, it was handy that Stalin helped us beat Hitler, but he was still pretty bad.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to cash this cheque from the CIA.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:01

Tiler Kiwi: Feb 26, 2011

swampman posted:

This is a distortion of what you've just read. The USSR did not "carve up" Poland. They entered ungoverned territory, with its government incommunicado, to defend their own borders and to retake territory stolen in 1921. The government did not just abdicate, it vanished. I don't know if you comprehend what a crime against the Polish people that was.

do you have any concept how sovereignty works

e: and Christ, the CIA was the KGB's bitch for anything up to (at the very earliest) Iran, and even then they needed British assistance. Making up lies about Stalin's actions inside the USSR would require having any clue what was going on in the USSR in the first place. Most of what they did was covering their own rear end, being wrong about nearly every assessment they made, while blindly sending hundreds of foreign agents to their pointless death.

Tiler Kiwi fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:03

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

KiteAuraan posted:

So an important question. Has anyone located any mass graves from the era? Because that would be a pretty big slam dunk. Or does Russia not allow locating and excavating things like that?

Actually, the graves at Katyn have long been excavated. Furr discusses Katyn at great length in Blood Lies and concludes, in agreement with the official Russian account of events, that most of the killings were done by Germans, that Russians also killed many Polish officers, and that these killings did not take place in a single discrete or planned event, but were most likely done in acts of revenge for the Polish murder of Russian POWs in the 1920-21 war.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:11

OldMemes: Sep 5, 2011; I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Literal genocide denial :stare:

Tell me, do you argue against the Holocaust as well, or is it only Stalin who you defend?

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:13

KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

swampman posted:

Actually, the graves at Katyn have long been excavated. Furr discusses Katyn at great length in Blood Lies and concludes, in agreement with the official Russian account of events, that most of the killings were done by Germans, that Russians also killed many Polish officers, and that these killings did not take place in a single discrete or planned event, but were most likely done in acts of revenge for the Polish murder of Russian POWs in the 1920-21 war.

And his evidence is what? A gut feeling? Because unless there is overwhelming material evidence that it was German forces doing the killing (distinctive bullet casings, distinctive bullets, bio-archaeological examination of skeletons showing wounds consistent with common German weapons) I am less inclined to believe the people who gave us Pravda.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:14

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

KiteAuraan posted:

And his evidence is what? A gut feeling? Because unless there is overwhelming material evidence that it was German forces doing the killing (distinctive bullet casings, distinctive bullets, bio-archaeological examination of skeletons showing wounds consistent with common German weapons) I am less inclined to believe the people who gave us Pravda.

Distinctive bullet casings are one part of his (and the Russian government's) evidence. Do you think that after all this, we're going to find that Furr spends like half a page on Katyn in Blood Lies? The chapter is over twenty pages and also discusses "bio-archaeological" evidence used to identify victims, for example the infamous Janin Lewandowska whose skull was identified by Polish "scientist" Dr. Jerzy Popielski on his deathbed using an unidentified form of "computer analysis." here's what Furr writes:

quote:

The Katyn Shell Casings

The Polish officers whose bodies were unearthed at Koz'i Gory, near Katyn, near Smolensk, Russia, by the Germans in April-June 1943, then again by the Russians in October - January 1943-44, were almost certainly shot by German and/or Ukrainian nationalist forces, for German shell casings were found in these mass graves. The official German report contains photographs of the shell casings. In a telling omission, these photographs are side views of the casings. There are no photographs of the "headstamps" or ends where the percussion cap and identifying marks are located. Most German bullets of the era had date stamps, just as most of those found at Volodymyr-Volyns'kyi did. If any of those had been stamped 1940 or earlier the Germans would surely have photographed them, since they would have been excellent proof of Soviet guilt. The fact that they did not suggests that the headstamps contained numbers or codes indicating manufacture in 1941. This is consistent with the other circumstantial evidence now available that points strongly to German, not Soviet, guilt.

swampman fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:19

OldMemes: Sep 5, 2011; I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Is Stalin your great uncle twice removed or something, because you seem to have a lot personally invested in trying to clear his name.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:22

KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

swampman posted:

Distinctive bullet casings are one part of his (and the Russian government's) evidence. Do you think that after all this, we're going to find that Furr spends like half a page on Katyn in Blood Lies? The chapter is over twenty pages and also discusses "bio-archaeological" evidence used to identify victims, for example the infamous Janin Lewandowska whose skull was identified by Polish "scientist" Dr. Jerzy Popielski on his deathbed using an unidentified form of "computer analysis."

And does he also discuss the primary documents Yeltsin released in 1990 showing Stalin had a direct hand in ordering the massacre? As well as the numerous intelligence reports from the Soviet Allied-British and US forces that were from the period pre-dating 1947 that also heavily suggest Soviet involvement? Face it man, Furr is wrong.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:23

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

KiteAuraan posted:

And does he also discuss the primary documents Yeltsin released in 1990 showing Stalin had a direct hand in ordering the massacre?

Post the documents that "show" this if you want me to "face it" yo. I know you're referring to "Closed Packet No. 1", which in October 2010 was shown to be a forgery by Russian researchers.

swampman fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:26

KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

swampman posted:

Post the documents that "show" this if you want me to "face it" yo

Here you go.
Of course you'll just attack the source because you're a tankie idiot.
And another source.
And another copy of the letter.

KiteAuraan fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:28

az: Dec 2, 2005

100 new posts overnight and the new argument is that Poland shouldn't have dressed so government-less-ly if it didn't want to be invaded :chloe:

Literally the argument my six year old used for when he ran off with the remote, after all I had put it down when I went to get a drink.

swampman posted:

Actually, the graves at Katyn have long been excavated. Furr discusses Katyn at great length in Blood Lies and concludes, in agreement with the official Russian account of events, that most of the killings were done by Germans, that Russians also killed many Polish officers, and that these killings did not take place in a single discrete or planned event, but were most likely done in acts of revenge for the Polish murder of Russian POWs in the 1920-21 war.

Did you really just claim that most of the bodies in Katyn were dumped there by the Germans and the Russians only happened to threw a few more onto the pile at a later date? I assume Grover has amazing arguments for why little things such as the Gorbachev papers, Yeltsin's package #1, the eye witness accounts, Beria's correspondence arguing that up to 30000 Poles should be put to death, or Russia refusing to hand over the last ~30 crates of relevant files despite heavy Polish protests, etc. etc., all do not actually make a case for a govt. planned and executed event of mass murder?

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:29

OldMemes: Sep 5, 2011; I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Probably a trick by the CIA or something, he'll claim.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:31

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

az posted:

Did you really just claim that most of the bodies in Katyn were dumped there by the Germans and the Russians only happened to threw a few more onto the pile at a later date? I assume Grover has amazing arguments for why little things such as the Gorbachev papers, Yeltsin's package #1, the eye witness accounts, Beria's correspondence arguing that up to 30000 Poles should be put to death, or Russia refusing to hand over the last ~30 crates of relevant files despite heavy Polish protests, etc. etc., all do not actually make a case for a govt. planned and executed event of mass murder?

Sure he does. Read the book. Literally everything everyone brings up is exhaustively covered by Furr. At this point "the argument", if you can call it that, is trying to get you goons to at least admit that the CIA openly spent the last sixty years funding anticommunist liars in academia. Even that well-documented truth isn't enough to get people to doubt their preconceptions about Soviet history. Believe me if I had no real life obligations and plenty of cash I would just buy 80-100 copies of Furr's books and send them to any of you who needs one, so you can do the legwork yourself. In a perfect, ie. communist world, it would be possible for me to deliver information to you so easily

swampman fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:33

KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

If the arguments he makes are so good you would be able to distill them and discuss the basis of them and what his sources are rather than going "LOL READ DA BOOK!". Your arguments aren't convincing anyone because you aren't using a bit of supporting evidence or citations to prove your point.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:38

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

KiteAuraan posted:

If the arguments he makes are so good you would be able to distill them and discuss the basis of them and what his sources are rather than going "LOL READ DA BOOK!". Your arguments aren't convincing anyone because you aren't using a bit of supporting evidence or citations to prove your point.

Look at the bottom of page 11 where I reproduce an entire section of the book with citations. I'm willing to do it whenever I have time, but it's arduous. As I and others have noted, there are forum rules and fair use issues that prevent me from just linking a pdf and copying/fixing OCRed sections.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:43

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

If any native Italian speakers could come in and translate / summarize Losurdo's Stalin: History and Criticism of a Black Legend it would probably be very helpful to this thread... just take it a page at a time please and get it done

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:45

az: Dec 2, 2005

swampman posted:

Read the book.

No gently caress you.

I did a cursory search out of curiosity and it all makes sense now. Furr starts gaining traction in stalinist and conspiracy message boards around 2013 and then really takes off in 14 and 15. It's like a game of telephone that tankies can really get into. The internet maoists really hate him though, what a shame. Even rhizzone hates him, what a world.

swampman posted:

Look at the bottom of page 11 where I reproduce an entire section of the book with citations. I'm willing to do it whenever I have time, but it's arduous. As I and others have noted, there are forum rules and fair use issues that prevent me from just linking a pdf and copying/fixing OCRed sections.

All of the names you copy pasted out there are also from the same tankie playbook, it's like they come in a package deal. Some of the first hits you get for them is communism reddit telling people to throw these at the wall in an attempt to silence opposition that can't be assed to read all of that poo poo. It's like you found all of this, including Grover, searching for a new hobby on tankie boards.

az fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:46

KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

swampman posted:

Look at the bottom of page 11 where I reproduce an entire section of the book with citations. I'm willing to do it whenever I have time, but it's arduous. As I and others have noted, there are forum rules and fair use issues that prevent me from just linking a pdf and copying/fixing OCRed sections.

That's not distilling and paraphrasing the arguments presented by the author to support your, swampman's, thesis. That's just copy pasting giant chunks of text, something Furr also seems to be fond of in the passage you transcribed, and rightly gets you laughed out of academia.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:47

Tiler Kiwi: Feb 26, 2011

i just like how the odd idea of the CIA being some hyper competent shadow org with hands everywhere, capable of rewriting history from 47 on, is beloved by two groups: conspiracy theorists, and the CIA.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:52

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

1mpper posted:

Again, it boggles my mind that you can believe that the concerted effort by the US government which included the CIA spending millions of dollars on front companies to fund academic anti-communists to create propaganda and overtly shape our current ideological discourse about russian history has nothing to do with that "awful publicity". Apparently you think that despite the well-documented and now declassified evidence which shows this self-declared effort to publish negative history about the USSR, current historical academia exists in some unbiased vacuum where self-described anti-communists who write about communism do so without bias or skin in the game and can therefore be trusted about Stalin because in the capitalist nation of the USA their view is orthodoxy. That no skepticism is warranted especially when, as in Snyder's case, their sources are woefully misinterpreted or outright false as Grover Furr took great care to show with exhaustive evidence. I believe there's a word for when you give anti-communists the benefit of the doubt when they write about communism, but are quick to dismiss as biased a communist writing about communism.

Believing the exact opposite of propaganda is just as dumb as accepting it uncritically. In either case your worldview is entirely shaped by it.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:57

az: Dec 2, 2005

Grover Furr, all around cool guy posted:

"What you said is bullshit! It's wrong! It's a lie! ... Of all of the falsifications that go on in the school systems in this country -- this world, Soviet history is falsified the most. I have spent many years researching this and similar questions that I have yet to find one crime -- yet to find one crime -- that Stalin committed. I know they all say he killed 20 or 30 or 40 million people. It's bullshit! ... This is the big lie -- that the Communists, that Stalin killed millions of people and that socialism is no good ... The United States has the lowest standard of living of any of the industrialized countries, and they all have some form of socialist health care, and you should have it too."

Hmmm.

quote:

�I think the reason Stalin is vilified is because, in his day at the helm of the Soviet Union, the exploiters all over the world had something to worry about! That's why I feel some kinship with Stalin..."

Hahaha how did this guy ever get a job in the US if amerikkka really is the great satan. He uses Marxist literature in his humanities courses, he taught a Vietnam war course (why anyone would let him I have no idea) for which he required using course material from his website, all of which heavily biased and most of which were written by himself(the uncredited non historian). Montclair University, what are you doing to your students?!

Edit: Glossing over some hilarious furrfacts, such as accusing the US of having been behind the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, or having deserved 9/11, it's extremly clear that his entire shtick is a drawn out game of "No you". Everything he cares about, and I mean everything, he finds ways to lay at another door. It is always the US, it is always the Nazis, and when there are no outside enemies to blame, it is always the Trots, or the Menschewiks, or Krushchev. He finds a topic he wants to clear Stalin of and then works backwards from there to find the "real" culprit, while making grandiose statements (Stalin has done literally nothing wrong) even when they go against official Soviet accounts and admissions. :allears:

And his ratemyprofessor is amazing.

az fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 13:57

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

I found a pretty nice little chunk of the Losurdo for yall, and formatted it for you to browse, because its cool and because I Care:

quote:

Excerpts from Domenico Losurdo�s Stalin: History and
Criticism of a Black Legend
Translator: Matthew Klinestiver
Preface

The following excerpts are translated from the 2011 French edition of Italian philosopher and historian Domenico Losurdo�s Stalin: storia e critica di una leggenda near (Carroci Press, 2008). Losurdo�s book is one of the only contemporary, non�Russian, �revisionist� accounts of Stalin�s leadership. The only recent book of a similar stripe is professor Grover Furr�s Khruschev Lied: The Evidence That Every �Revelation� of Stalin�s (and Beria�s) Crimes in Nikita Khrushchev�s Infamous �Secret Speech� to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, is Provably False (Erythros Press, 2011).

Aside from French, Stalin: storia e critica di una leggenda near has been translated into Spanish (Stalin: historia y cr�tica una leyanda negra, El Viejo Topo, 2010) and German (Stalin: Geschichte und Kritik einer schwarzen Legende, Papyrossa, 2012) editions. Unsurprisingly, no English translation is forthcoming.

Included among Losurdo�s more recent works are: Liberalism: A Counter�History (Verso, 2014), Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns (Duke University Press, 2004), and Heidegger and the Ideology of War: Community, Death, and the West (Humanity Books, 2001).

The translator has added all footnotes, and, moreover, assumes all responsibility for any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

1 The French original is available here:
http://www.lafauteadiderot.net/Extraits%ADdu%ADlivre%ADStaline%ADhistoire

2 An exchange between Professors Losurdo and Furr can be found on Professor Losurdo�s website:
http://domenicolosurdo.blogspot.com/2013/01/lo%ADstorico%ADstatunitense%ADgrover%ADfurr.html

Pages 31 to 35

1.2 The Great Patriotic War and the �inventions� of Khrushchev
Translator�s introduction to Sections 1.2 and 1.3:
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev�s 1956 �Secret Speech� sent shock waves through the entire world, and dealt a severe blow to the international communist movement. In the speech, was called �On the Cult of Personality and its Consequences,� Khrushchev condemned the achievements of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, accusing him, among other things, of self�deification and military incompetence. In this section of his book, Losurdo focuses on the latter of these allegations. And, using archival material, he attempts to reveal that Khrushchev�s assertions were entirely without merit. In Section 1.2, he shows that Stalin had made serious preparations for war, something that Khrushchev emphatically denied. Then, in section 1.3, he shows that Stalin was a perceptive and strategic wartime commander � further discrediting Khrushchev�s attack.
��
After the battle of Stalingrad and the defeat suffered by the Third Reich (a power which had, up to then, seemed invincible), Stalin gained enormous prestige across the world. And, accordingly, Khrushchev specifically touched on this matter in his �Secret Speech.� He described, in catastrophic terms, the military unpreparedness of the Soviet Union, claiming that its army was, in some cases, lacking the most elementary weapons. However a study that seems to have been produced by the German military, or which, in any case, makes much use of their military archives, directly opposes this view. It speaks of �the superiority of the Red Army in assault tanks, planes, and artillery pieces.� Moreover, it notes that �the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union has attained dimensions which have provided the Soviet armies with a practically unimaginable level of armament.� This is a sentiment that only intensifies with the approach of Operation Barbarossa.

One piece of data is particularly telling: in 1940, the Soviet Union produced 358 tanks of the most advanced type, of significantly higher quality than was available to other armies, but in just the first half of the next year, it produced 150,336 [1]. Furthermore, documents from the Russian archives hold that, at least during the two years preceding the aggression of the Third Reich, Stalin was literally obsessed with the problem of �quantitative expansion� and �qualitative improvement of the entire military.� Some information speaks for itself. While in the first Soviet five year plan, the amount spent on defense was 5.4% of total state expenditures, by 1941 it had reached 43.4%; �in September 1939, at the order of Stalin, the Politburo made the decision to build nine new airplane factories before 1941�; and, at the moment of Hitler's invasion, �Soviet industry had produced 2,700 modern aircraft and 4,300 tanks� [2]. Judging from this information, one could say anything but that the USSR had been unprepared for their tragic entry into the war.

Moreover, a decade ago, an American historian inflicted a severe blow to the myth that the Soviet leader had collapsed and fled immediately after the Nazi invasion: �Operation Barbarossa� was the German�s code name for their June 22nd, 1941 surprise attack on the Soviet Union.
�although shaken, on the day of the attack, Stalin convened a meeting with party bosses,
and government and military officials, a practice he continued in the course of the next
few days� [3]. We also now have a registry of visitors to Stalin's office in the Kremlin,
first discovered in the early 90s. It shows that in the immediate aftermath of the attack,
the Soviet leader engaged himself intensely in planning the resistance. These were days
and nights characterized by an �exhausting,� but orderly, amount of activity. In every
case, �the whole episode [recounted by Khrushchev] is totally invented,� and the �story is
false� [4].

In reality, from the very beginning of Operation Barbarossa, not only did Stalin make extremely difficult decisions, arranging for the movement of people and industrial sites that were close to the front, but �he retained minute control of everything, from the size and shape of the bayonets to the Pravda headlines and who wrote the articles� [5]. There was no trace of panic or hysteria. Read, for example, the diary of [Georgi] Dimitrov, a witness, which says: �At 7 am, I was urgently summoned to the Kremlin. Germany had attacked the USSR. The war had started [...] Stalin and the others had quiet strength, and incredible confidence.�

The immediate clarity of his ideas is even more striking. It is necessary not only to move forward with the �general mobilization of our forces,� but also to define a policy framework. Indeed, he declares that �only the communists can defeat the fascists,� putting to an end the seemingly unstoppable rise of the Third Reich. But, at the same time, it won't do to lose sight of the real nature of the conflict: �The [communist] parties are launching a movement for the defense of the USSR. Don't ask about the socialist revolution. The Soviet people are conducting a patriotic war against fascist Germany. The question is one of the defeat of fascism � fascism that can only mean the enslavement of a whole host of peoples� [6]. This is the political strategy that would govern the Great Patriotic War.

4
Several months prior, Stalin had already emphasized that the Third Reich's expansionism, �was a sign of the subjugation and the submission of other peoples� who
responded with just wars of national aggression and national liberation (see below, 5.3). For another thing, the Communist International had taken care to respond to those who scholastically opposed socialist patriotism and internationalism, even before Hitler's aggression, as is reported in a note in Dimitrov's diary, dated May 12, 1941: We must develop the idea of a marriage between healthy and well�understood nationalism and proletarian internationalism. Proletarian internationalism is based on commingling of the nationalisms of many countries [...] there can be no contradiction between healthy nationalism and proletarian internationalism. Rootless cosmopolitans, refusing the national sentiment and the idea of the homeland, have nothing to do with proletarian internationalism [7].

Far from being a improvised and desperate reaction to the situation created by the onset of Operation Barbarossa, the strategy of the Great Patriotic War expressed a theoretical orientation of a more general character � one that had matured over a long period: internationalism, and the international movement for the emancipation of peoples, concretely advanced the wave of national liberation, which was made necessary because of Hitler's attempt to resume and radicalize the colonial tradition, with the goal of subjecting and enslaving the allegedly servile races of Eastern Europe.

The same sentiments are taken up in the speeches and statements made by Stalin over the course of the war. They constituted �significant milestones in the clarification of Soviet military strategy and political objectives, and they played an important role in reinforcing popular morale [8]; they also took on an international significance, as an annoyed Goebbels observed about a Soviet radio announcement issued on July 3rd, 1941, which �created a huge amount of admiration in England and the USA� [9].

Pages 35 to 40
1.3 A series of disinformation campaigns and Operation Barbarossa Khrushchev�s report has lost all credibility even at the level of military operations. According to him, Stalin, ignoring all �warnings� about the immanence of invasion, confronted the impending danger irresponsibly. But, does this accusation have any basis in truth?

Everyone knows that even information from a friendly country may prove to be incorrect. For example, on June 17th, 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned Stalin about an impending Japanese attack � an attack that, of course, never materialized [10]. Especially on the eve of Hitler's aggression, the USSR was forced to come to grips with diversionary tactics and massive amounts of disinformation.

The Third Reich wanted to create the false belief that its mass of troops in the East was only intended to conceal its maneuvers across the English Channel, and this was made even more credible after its conquest of Crete. �The entire State and military apparatus is mobilized,� Goebbels was pleased to note in his diary (May 31st 1941), to set in place the �first wave of the cover�up [of Operation Barbarossa].� At that point �fourteen divisions were transported to the West [11]; moreover, all the troops stationed at the Western front were put on maximum alert [12].

Two weeks later, the Berlin edition of the V�lkischer Beobachter published an account that described the occupation of Crete as a model for the squaring of accounts with England. The paper was then immediately withdrawn from publication to give the impression that it had clumsily revealed a secret of the utmost importance.

Three days afterwards (the 14th of June), Goebbels notes in his journal: �English radio reports state that our deployment against Russia is only a bluff, behind which we are hoping to hide our preparations for the invasion [of England]� [13]. The German disinformation campaign also had another goal: Germany's military deployment in the East put pressure on the USSR, possibly serving as an ultimatum that would force Stalin to accept a redefinition of the clauses of the Nazi�Soviet pact, and to export larger quantities of grain and coal to the Third Reich, which was engaged in a seemingly endless war. Germany wanted to give the impression that the crisis could be resolved through further negotiations and with additional concessions from Moscow [14]. This was the conclusion reached by British intelligence and military leaders, who again, on the 22nd of May, warned the war Cabinet: �Hitler has not yet decided whether to pursue his objectives [with regard to the USSR] with persuasion or force of arms� [15]. On the 14th of June, a satisfied Goebbels noted in his journal that: �In general, they still believe it's a bluff or a blackmail attempt� [16].

The disinformation campaign undertaken against the Soviets, which had begun two years prior, should not be underestimated either. In November 1939, the French press published a fake speech (said to have been delivered to the Politburo in August of that year) in which Stalin was supposed to have revealed a plan to weaken Europe, by first stoking a fratricidal war, then moving to Sovietize the continent. There is no doubt about it: the report was false, and it was designed to break the Nazi�Soviet non�aggression pact, and to direct eastward the expansionist fury of the Third Reich [17].

According to a prevalent historiographical misconception, the British government, warned Stalin repeatedly and selflessly about the impending Nazi attack, but he, in dictatorial fashion, trusted his German counterpart. In reality, if on the one hand Great Britain gave Moscow information about Operation Barbarossa, on the other, they spread false information about an immanent Soviet attack against Germany or its occupied territories [18]. The point, which is completely self�evident, was to either speed up or render a Nazi�Soviet conflict inevitable.

Then, of course, there is the mysterious flight of Rudolf Hess to England, which was clearly designed with the hope of reuniting the West in the war against Bolshevism, thus giving concrete expression to the program found in Mein Kampf, which calls for the alliance and solidarity of the Germanic peoples in their �civilizing� mission. Soviet agents abroad informed the Kremlin that the Nazi number two had commenced his mission with the full support of the Fuhrer [19]. Moreover, high�ranking Nazi figures continued until the very end to support the contention that Hess had acted on Hitler's behalf.

In any case, the need was felt to immediately deploy minister of foreign affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop to Rome, in order to assure Mussolini that Germany was not plotting a separate peace with Great Britain [20]. Evidently, the concern generated by this turn of events was even stronger in Moscow, where it was noted that Britain did not exploit the �capture of the Vice Fuhrer� to take advantage of �the greatest propaganda advantage, what Hitler and Goebbels awaited with fear�; on the contrary, the interrogation of Hess � as reported to Stalin by the Soviet ambassador in London, Ivan Majski � was entrusted to a British leader who favored a policy of appeasement with the Nazis.

Even as they left the door open to Anglo�Soviet rapprochement, her Majesty's secret services spread rumors of an immanent peace between London and Berlin; all this was in order to put pressure on the Soviet Union (which might have tried to prevent an alliance between Great Britain and the Third Reich with a pre�emptive attack on the Wehrmacht) and thereby strengthen Britain�s diminished capabilities [21]. The caution and distrust of the Kremlin are understandable; the danger of a repeat of the Munich Betrayal appeared, on a much larger and deadlier scale. It may well be hypothesized that the second disinformation campaign undertaken by the Third Reich had been extremely effective.

In any case, if we stick to the transcript found in the Soviet Communist Party archives, in which, while implying that the USSR would only enter the conflict briefly, Stalin, in a speech to the graduates of the military academy on May 5th, 1941, highlighted how Germany had historically won wars win it had fought on only one front; but had lost when it was obliged to fight in the East and West at the same time [22]. Stalin may have underestimated Hitler's impatience to attack the USSR. Moreover, Stalin 5 An agreement signed by the Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, which allowed the Germans to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. No Czechoslovakian representatives were present.

knew that total mobilization would give a casus belli to the Third Reich on a silver platter, as had happened at the outbreak of World War I.

One point is, however, certain: while acting cautiously in a rather confusing situation, the Soviet leader called for a �speeding�up of war preparations.� In fact, �between May and June, 800,000 reservists were called up, and in mid�May, 28 divisions were deployed to the Western districts of the Soviet Union.� Stalin proceeded at an accelerated rhythm, fortifying the frontiers and concealing the most sensitive military objectives. �On the night of the 21st of June, this large force was put on alert and asked to prepare for a surprise attack by the Germans� [23].

In order to discredit Stalin, Khrushchev insisted upon the spectacular initial victories of the invading army, but he sloppily overlooked the forecasts that had been made in the West at the time. After the partition of Czechoslovakia and the Wehrmacht's entrance into Prague, Lord Halifax continued to reject the idea of a rapprochement between England and the Soviet Union, arguing that it didn�t make sense for Britain to ally itself with a country whose armed forces were �insignificant.� Either on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, or at the moment it was undertaken, the British secret service calculated that the Soviet Union would be �liquidated in 8 or 10 weeks�; in turn, U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson's advisors predicted on June 23rd, that the Soviets would be finished within 3 months [24]. Moreover, the Wehrmacht's deep penetration into Soviet territory, observes a contemporary military historian � is easily explained by geography:

The length of the front (1800 miles) and the rarity of natural obstacles of ered the aggressor immense advantages for infiltration and maneuvering. Despite the enormous size of the Red Army, it was still dwarfed by the landscape, and German mechanized units could easily identify opportunities for indirect maneuvers that would flank their opponents. Moreover, that cities were far apart, and placed at the convergence of roads and rail lines, allowed the aggressor to quickly shift objectives, placing its Soviet enemy in a series of successive dilemmas.

Pages 229 to 235
4.8 The Gulag, Concentration Camps, and the �Absent Third�

Translator�s introduction to Section 4.8:
In this section of his book, Losurdo tries to make clear that the most obvious point of comparison with regards to Nazi concentration camp system is not the Soviet Gulag, but rather the prison and extermination centers of the Western colonial powers (in fact, he points out that these were first called �concentration camps�).

That the relationship between Nazi and colonial European concentration camps is practically never explored is no accident. Instead, it is the result of a willful practice of forgetting and a continuous process of historical revisionism that seeks to downplay European and American culpability for the atrocities characteristic of their racialist and imperialist projects. This history of colonialist internment genocide is thus, Losurdo argues, an �absent third� point of comparison. By his account, it is American and European colonialism, not Soviet communism, which is ideologically implicated in the Third Reich�s mass genocide.
��
Following the invasions of Poland and the USSR, the system of Nazi concentration camps resumed, and intensified, some of the darkest chapters in the history of colonialist slavery.

When, during the slave trade, the availability of slaves was virtually unlimited, owners had no economic interested in sparing their slaves� lives. These slaves were condemned to death from overwork, and promptly replaced with others, with the goal of maximizing the economic benefit of their owners. Thus, an 18th century economist who caught Marx's attention observes that the flourishing agriculture of the West Indies �engulfed millions of African men� because �the lives of blacks are sacrificed with no scruples� [26].

The war Hitler unleashed in Eastern Europe represented a new and more brutal form of the slave trade. Captured en masse, the Untermenschen slaves (who had survived the Germanization of the territory) died of overwork to make possible the master race�s �civilization,� and to fuel the Nazi war machine. Their conditions were similar to those of enslaved blacks, with whom they are explicitly compared by Hitler.

Prison systems reproduce the relations of the societies that control them. In the USSR, in the interior and exterior of the Gulag, we see basically the work of a dictatorship of development that tries to mobilize and �re�educate� all the force of society, attempting to overcome an age�old backwardness, something that is made all the more urgent by the approach of a war that, by the explicit statement of Mein Kampf, has as its goal slavery and annihilation. One can then see that �terror� in the Soviet Union meant the emancipation of oppressed nationalities, robust social mobility and access to education, culture, and even the placement in positions of responsibility and management portions of society that had been totally marginalized up to that point.

The obsession with productivity and pedagogy, and the social mobility that accompanied it, is felt, in all cases, even in the interior of the Gulag. Nazi concentration camps reflected, in complete distinction, the base racial hierarchy that characterized the racialist Nazi state and the racialist empire it was attempting to construct. For the Nazis, German slur which means �under,� �below,� or �sub�� humans.� the concrete behavior of detained individuals played an uninteresting, or rather marginal, role; therefore a pedagogical preoccupation was rather meaningless.

In conclusion, the prisoner in the Gulag is a potential �comrade,� obligated to participate in particularly difficult conditions towards the productive effort of the whole country, and after 1937, he is, without contest, a potential �citizen.� Of course, there is a tenuous line of demarcation between the enemy of the people and member of the fifth column that the total war on the horizon already acts to neutralize. In contrast, the concentration camp prisoner is in the first place an Untermensch, marked forever by his place or racial degeneracy.

Thus, if you really want to drawn an analogy with concentration camps, it's necessary to compare the Nazi concentration camps with the colonial tradition (especially given that this is just the lineage in which Hitler places them). This tradition targets, particularly, people of colonial origin. And this is precisely what is repressed in typical [scholarly] comparisons. And, it is in this sense that we can speak of an �absent Third,� something that contemporary scholars usually overlook.

Two distinguished historians have, respectively, labeled the �military work camps� of colonial India circa 1877, and the concentration camps in which Libyans had been imprisoned by liberal Italy, as �extermination camps� [27]. Thus if we want to understand the genesis of this model, the fact remains that Nazi concentration camps disclosed a racial logic and hierarchy that governed the Italian and Western colonial empires, and which is incorporated in the concentration camps that they built.

It is equally likely that we will think of the Nazis when we read about the ways in which the �Canadian holocaust� or �the final solution to our Indian question� was perpetrated. The �Commission for Truth About the Canadian Genocide� speaks of �death camps� with �men, women and children� that were �exterminated in a deliberate fashion� in a �system that had the objective of destroying the largest possible share of indigenous people through disease, deportation, or murder.� To arrive at this result, champions of white supremacy didn't hesitate to strike �innocent children� who died �because of beatings or tortures or after having been deliberately exposed to tuberculosis and other sicknesses�; still others were subjected to forced sterilization. A �small minority of collaborators� managed to survive, but only after renouncing their language and identity and putting themselves at the services of the executioners [28]. Even if we can presume that a sense of righteous indignation contributed to the exaggeration of these events, the fact remains that we come across the same practices that were put into effect by the Third Reich and enactments that stem from an ideology very similar to the one that presided over the construction of Hitler's racial state.

Let us move now to the southern United States.

In the decades that followed the Civil War, black prisoners (who made up the vast majority of the incarcerated population), were leased to private enterprises, and kept in �large cages on wheels that followed the encampments of real estate and railway developers.� Official reports show that the prisoners were excessively and sometimes cruelly punished; �they were under�dressed and ill�nourished, the sick among them were neglected, no medical care was provided for, and the sick weren�t separated from the healthy.� An investigation conducted by a Mississippi grand jury found of the sick that: their entire bodies show the signs maltreatment of the most brutal and inhuman kind. A large number of their shoulders are covered in lesions, blisters, and scars, some have raw skin because they have been whipped... They lay dying and some of them lay on bare tables, so weak and emaciated that their bones are almost glimpsed through the skin, and many complained of the lack of food [...].We saw live parasites slither across their faces, and their poor sleeping areas and meager scraps of clothing are often ragged and filthy.

In miners� camps in Arkansas and Alabama, convicts were forced to work all winter without shoes, standing in water for hours. In these two states, a system of �piecework� was in effect, where a team of three men was obligated to remove an extraordinary amount of coal within a day on pain of whipping. Convicts in the work camps of Florida, with �chains on their feet� and �chains around their waists� were, nonetheless, forced to work at a quick pace [29]. We thus have a system that uses �chains, dogs, whips and guns� and that �creates a living hell for its prisoners�.

The mortality rate is highly significant. Between 1877 and 1880, in the course of the construction of a railway line between Greenwood and Augusta �almost 45% [of the convicts employed] died,� and these were �young and in the prime of their lives� [30]. Another statistic from the same period can be cited: �During the first two years in which Alabama began to lease out its prisoners, almost 20% of them died. The following year, deaths climbed to 35%; in the fourth year 45% of them died.�

Regarding mortality rates, a systematic study comparing the concentration camps in the USSR and in Nazi Germany would be very interesting. As far as the Gulag is concerned, it was calculated that in the first years of the thirties, before the intensification of the dangers of war, that the annual death rate �more or less corresponded to 4.8% of the population of the camps.� Of course, this statistic does not include the gold mining camps around the Kolyma river; we must also take into account �the underestimates characteristic of camp health officials.�

Yet, even if official figures have been substantially altered, it would be difficult for Soviet mortality levels to reach the same levels as those of the African American inmates mentioned above. Moreover, the reasons for �under�estimates� are significant. The fact is that �high rates of mortality and escape could lead to severe penalties�; �health officials in camps feared being accused of negligence and flippancy in the care of the sick�; and, �the threat of inspection constantly hung over camp leaders� [32]. Judging from the mortality rate of the rented out semi�slaves mentioned above, there was no comparable threat for the American entrepreneurs who enriched themselves constructing railway lines using inmate labor.

One point should be made very clear. In the American south, black inmates experienced horrible conditions of life and died en masse in a period of peace: a �state of emergency� played no role and the need to develop productive forces is also marginal or non�existent. The concentration camps in the southern United States reproduced the racial hierarchy and the racial state that characterized American society in its aggregate: the black inmate is not a potential �comrade,� nor a potential �citizen�; he is an Untermensch. His treatment by whites is considered the normal relationship in which other races are supposed to exist alongside, or rather subordinated to, �authentic civilization.� Here again, we find the ideology of the Third Reich.

Moreover, there are eminent U.S. historians who compare the penitentiary system that we have just seen to �the prison camps of Nazi Germany� [33]. And it's no coincidence that the medical experiments carried out by Nazis upon Untermenschen were also conducted in the USA, using blacks as human guinea pigs [34]. Moreover, before engaging in this type of experimentation on its own territory, Germany, during the imperialist years of Wilhelm II, conducted medical experiments in Africa, at the expense of Africans: two doctors would distinguish themselves in these pursuits, and later become the teachers of Joseph Mengele [35], who in Nazi Germany, carried out the perversion of medicine and science already established within the (European and American) colonial tradition.

Not only can the Third Reich not be understood outside the history of the West's subjugation of its colonies, but it is also necessary to add that this tradition continues to show signs of vitality well beyond the defeat of Hitler. In 1997, President Clinton felt compelled to apologize to the African�American community: �During the 60s, more than 400 men of color were used as human guinea pigs by the government. In spite of having syphilis, they were not treated because authorities wanted to study the effects of the disease on a �sample of the population.�� [36].

Pages 389 to 391

6.7. The inevitability and complexity of moral judgment Even if it is inevitable, moral judgment appears superficial and hypocritical if it is formulated outside of a historical context � hence its complexity and its problematic character. It requires that we kind in mind both objective circumstances and subjective responsibilities, and, regarding the latter, that we distinguish between those that belong to the leadership class as a whole, and those that belong to particular individuals. The leadership of Soviet Russia comes to power at a period when � as a Christian witness, who sympathized with the October 1917 revolution put it � �Pity was killed by the omnipresence of death� [37]. Moreover this group is forced to confront an extended state of emergency, in a situation characterized � to quote an author of the Black Book of Communism � by an �incredible brutality�, widespread and �incommensurate with that experienced by Western societies�.

This means that if the protagonists of the 20th century were obliged to confront the devastating conflicts and moral dilemmas that characterized the �second� Thirty Years' War, Stalin also had to pit himself against the conflicts and particular moral dilemmas of Russian history and of the second period of disorders. One could say that the shadow of �supreme emergency� dominated the thirty years in which he exercised power. One should not, however, lose sight of the fact that objective conditions were not the only thing to impede or make impossible the passage from the state of exception to a condition of normality.

Messianism was also a contributing factor. Although, it had been powerfully stimulated by World War I, it was intrinsic to a worldview which expected the disappearance of the market, of money, of the state, and of juridical law. Disillusionment or, perhaps, indignation, subsequently exacerbated the conflict � a conflict which was not possible to control through purely �formal� juridical norms, which themselves disappear. The result is recourse to violence that it is not possible to justify with reference to the state of exception or �supreme emergency.� In this sense, moral judgment coincides with political judgment. This point is also valid when it comes to the liberal West.

It was observed about the man who executed the strategic bombardments against Germany [Sir Arthur Harris]: As a young pilot, Harris had bombed rebel Indian civilians. Even his �shock psychology� was originally derived from observing cultural shock. Primitive tribes who lived in villages of thatched huts threw themselves fascinated at the feet of the colonial empire and its industrial arsenal. [38]

Moreover, it was especially Churchill who promoted these wars: we see him suggest attacking �recalcitrant natives� in Iraq with bombing based on �gas and especially mustard projectiles,� and then compare Germans with �evil Huns.� We can also see the importance of racial ideology in the war of the United States against Japan (supra, 6.4), the atomic bombing of which is no matter of coincidence. Here again emerges a supplementary violence that it is impossible to justify through a �supreme emergency,� but which is a return to the colonial ideology shared by the liberal West and Germany. If the Third Reich equates the decimation of Native Americans and Blacks to the enslavement of �indigenous� eastern Europeans, England and the United States likewise end up treating Germans and Japanese as colonial peoples who must be made obedient.

Citations :
[1] Hoffmann (1995), p. 59 et 21
[2] Wolkogonov (1989), p. 500�504
[3] Knight (1997), p. 132
[4] Medvedev, Medvedev (2003), p. 231�232
[5] Montefiore (2007), p. 416
[6] Dimitrov (2005), p. 478�479
[7] Idem, p. 472
[8] Roberts (2006), p. 7
[9] Goebbels (1992), p. 1620 (note de journal du 5 juillet 1941)
[10] Dans Butler (2005), p. 71�72
[11] Goebbels (1992), p. 1590
[12] Wolkow (2003), p. 111
[13] Goebbels (1992), p. 1594�1595 et 1597
[14] Besymenski (2003), p. 422�425
[15] Costello (1991), p. 438�439
[16] Goebbels (1992), p. 1599
[17] Roberts (2006), p. 35
[18] Wolkow (2003), p. 110
[19] Costello (1991), p. 436�437
[20] Kershaw (2000), p. 376 et 372
[21] Idem, p. 380�381 ; Ferro (2008), p. 115 (pour ce qui concerne Majski)
[22] Besymenski (2003), p. 380�386 (et en particulier p. 384)
[23] Roberts (2006), p. 66�69
[24] Ferro (2008), p. 64 ; Bene� (1954), p. 151 ; Gardner (1993), p. 92�93
[25] Liddell Hart (2007), p. 414�415
[26] Marx, Engels (1955�89), vol. 23, p. 281�282
[27] Davis (2001), p. 50�51 ; Del Boca (2006), p. 121
[28] Annett (2001), p. 5�6, 12 et 16�17.
[29] Woodward (1963), p. 206�207
[30] Friedman (1993), p. 95
[31] Blackmon (2008), p. 57
[32] Chlevnjuk (2006), p. 349 et 346�347
[33] Ainsi Fletcher M. Green, dans Woodward (1963), p. 207
[34] Washington (2007)
[35] Kotek, Rigoulot (2000), p. 92
[36] E. R. (2007) ; cf. Washington (2007), p. 184
[37] Ainsi Pierre Pascal, rapport� par Furet (1995), p. 131
[38] Friedrich (2004), p. 287

# ? Apr 5, 2016 14:10

KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

Wait, he doesn't even argue against the existence of Gulags, he just says NO YOU AMERIKKA ALSO HAD WORK CAMPS THEREFORE COMRADE STALIN GOOD AND PURE! That's an argument. A stupid one.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 14:23

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

KiteAuraan posted:

Wait, he doesn't even argue against the existence of Gulags, he just says NO YOU AMERIKKA ALSO HAD WORK CAMPS THEREFORE COMRADE STALIN GOOD AND PURE! That's an argument. A stupid one.

Well he does point out that the prisoner death rate in the Gulags was around 4.8% or maybe even more, whereas American work camps had death rates ranging from 25% to 45%. Why would anyone argue that the Russian gulags "never existed?" I guess that's an argument you could actually defeat

# ? Apr 5, 2016 14:36

az: Dec 2, 2005

^^Nobody you ever quoted has actually pointed anything out, they claim things. Lots and lots of claims, referencing their brethren "historians" in a circular firing squad of neostalinist vindication efforts.

Looking into Losurdo's body of work is almost as funny as Furr's. Even the Rosa Luxemburg foundation accuses him of being inconcrete, creating homogenous abstracts in an effort to obfuscate, naked apologia and my favorite, cynical bean counting styled attempts to compare Stalin to Churchill and FDR, in an effort to muddy the waters true to whataboutist fashion. And I'm only halfway through this recension, it's great. It's like looking into a mirror and Furr staring back.

az fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 14:44

Acebuckeye13: Nov 2, 2010; Against All Tyrants; Ultra Carp

Oh man that's great stuff. Poor analysis, outright wrong facts and figures, and a big heaping of :qqsay:

"But the West!"

I mean, let's talk about this section right here:

quote:

Judging from this information, one could say anything but that the USSR had been unprepared for their tragic entry into the war.

This is laughable. The Red Army was in the midst of a massive reorganization in 1941, and was as singularly unprepared as it was possible to be. Not only were they still reeling from the effects of the purges (Which had replaced nearly all of their experienced officers with fresh-faced students, and had reduced much of the remainder to quivering wrecks who refused to perform any actions without explicit orders for fear of getting shot), but the material conditions of the Army were abysmal. The vast majority of the Red Army's guns, tanks, and planes were hopelessly obsolete, and their logistical system was an absolute mess. This was an army that was hopelessly unprepared for the war that was to come, and wouldn't have been ready for at least another year or two. This was, of course, in the face of overwhelming evidence that the Germans were planning to invade, information that was provided to the Soviet Union at great personal cost to its best intelligence agents, only to be completely ignored by Stalin.

Stalin was certainly a better wartime leader than, say, Hitler, but he wasn't exactly god's gift to generalship as that article seems to suggest. The Soviet Union's greatest successes were achieved when Stalin kept the hell out of the way of planning, and left it to actual military professionals.

Oh, and also

quote:

One piece of data is particularly telling: in 1940, the Soviet Union produced 358 tanks of the most advanced type, of significantly higher quality than was available to other armies, but in just the first half of the next year, it produced 150,336

Yes, I'm sure that the Soviet Union produced more tanks in the first six months of 1941 than it actually did during the entire war.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 14:45

KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

It's also worth mentioning that FDR put an end to prisoner leasing specifically because he realized the US would be entering a war against at least the Nazis and Imperial Japan and that having what amounted to slavery was bad optics, so bringing it up to absolve Stalin is asinine.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 14:47

Tiler Kiwi: Feb 26, 2011

the fact the numbers of dead convicts is quoted in a very specific context and given as a percentage is a red flag to me. glancing at it, it's death tolls were probably in the low thousands; it's limited due to the fairly low number of people incarcerated at the time. the entire us prison system at the time had less than half a million incarcerated in jails and in prisons, after all.

looking at gulag death tolls puts the low end at 1 million, when only looking at official figures. so, uh, yeah.

Tiler Kiwi fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 15:00

az: Dec 2, 2005

That excerpt is insane. A naked, rude and fruity blowjob for Stalin and an equally rude hitjob on Krushchev (neostalinists have to attack him constantly in an effort to defend Stalin). The bits and pieces pertaining to military history are especially egregious, and I'm not sure if calling it crass fabrications or a sweaty fever dream is more accurate. It's so terrible it would take more words correcting it than he used to "present" it.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 15:07

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

1mpper posted:

Does the fact that the CIA did, and this is not a conspiracy theory, it is an actual conspiracy, it is well-documented, including on the CIA's own site, with their own words, this is all true stuff that is now in the open, the fact that the CIA funded articles with a lot of money about how terrible the USSR was during the cold war not give you pause at all about the veracity of some of those claims? Particularly not make you pause at all why the general discourse in the west is mostly extremely negative rather than more nuanced?

Sure, but this doesn't mean the USSR was a fantastic land of rainbows and fairies and riches and happiness. It just means it was less lovely than it was portrayed, not that it wasn't lovely at all. As a general rule of thumb, everyone was terrible to some degree, so "what if X was actually an innocent angel" theories like this tend be whitewashing, inspired by a mixture of the personality cult surrounding that figure and sheer dumb contrarianism. Besides, while total bullshit might have passed muster in 1960 when the Iron Curtain was in full effect, the Cold War has been over for more than a quarter of a century, the Soviet archives have been thrown open to academic research, and more. The USSR is no longer a shadowy mystery country. This also tends to be why "one lone academic figured out that all of history is wrong about X, everybody hates him" stuff tends to be dubious - the same sources are available to almost everyone, so unless new documents were recently discovered, something that far off the established grain tends to be quackery rather than an amazing breakthrough.

Flocons de Jambon posted:

It's a pedantic point that since the Polish government was technically interned in Romania there was no Polish state to invade. It had only been a week or so and there was still an army in the field that the USSR had to fight when they passed over the frontier.

It's horsecrap. The breakdown of high-level government does not mean that the nation-state has entirely ceased to exist, nor does it mean that any other government is free to come in and occupy or annex that nation's lands at will. Neither "we want a buffer zone in territory that's not ours, for self-defense" or "well, we're the rightful rulers of that land and it's just an accident of history that it departed our control - an accident we intend to fix" are valid reasons for violating another country's sovereignty, even if the government has been driven out. This is particularly the case since the failure of government was caused by a hostile invasion, and that the Soviet Union had agreed - with the perpetrator of the hostile invasion - to invade Poland long before the Polish government fled.

Flocons de Jambon posted:

What do you think of the British sinking the French fleet after they surrendered?

A British crime against France that they had no right to commit, though I don't really see how that has anything to do with Poland! A better model for comparison might be the Allied invasion of Iran, where a perfectly stable neutral country was invaded and occupied by Allied forces simply because "through Iran" was the most convenient way to send Lend-Lease supplies to the Soviets. In both cases, though, it was the Allies flagrantly disregarding and violating the rights of other countries for the sake of selfish convenience. The sinking of the French fleet is still somewhat of a sore spot between Britain and France, and there's a reason no one talks about the WWII invasion of Iran (except Iran themselves, who have yet to forgive the West for it).

swampman posted:

Distinctive bullet casings are one part of his (and the Russian government's) evidence. Do you think that after all this, we're going to find that Furr spends like half a page on Katyn in Blood Lies? The chapter is over twenty pages and also discusses "bio-archaeological" evidence used to identify victims, for example the infamous Janin Lewandowska whose skull was identified by Polish "scientist" Dr. Jerzy Popielski on his deathbed using an unidentified form of "computer analysis." here's what Furr writes:

If German shell casings were evidence of German guilt, then presumably the Germans wouldn't have included them in their own report. This whole "they included almost all the evidence themselves in their own press release, and any missing evidence is just proof that there was a cover-up" poo poo is prime conspiracy theory garbage. And, as is common among quack historians, he's making a big deal about things that seem significant to the layman but are actually utterly meaningless - and that, not a CIA conspiracy, is why most historians don't take this "evidence" seriously even though it's been around for over seventy years. The presence of German shell casings is not unusual, since both Polish and Soviet forces had access to German-made weaponry, and German shell casings were present in the mass graves of other NKVD massacres too - particularly the Mednoe massacre, which is particularly notable because the location of the mass grave was never occupied by the Nazis. Date stamps are unlikely to prove anything either, since ammunition is not always fired in the very same year that it was made, particularly in times of peace.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 15:13

Budzilla: Oct 14, 2007; We can all learn from our past mistakes.

Acebuckeye13 posted:

Yes, I'm sure that the Soviet Union produced more tanks in the first six months of 1941 than it actually did during the entire war.

Not on topic for the thread but here is a very good video for those that are interested in tank production in WW2 of the 3 major manufacters (USSR, USA and Germany).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6xLMUifbxQ&t=1580s

# ? Apr 5, 2016 15:22

Acebuckeye13: Nov 2, 2010; Against All Tyrants; Ultra Carp

Budzilla posted:

Not on topic for the thread but here is a very good video for those that are interested in tank production in WW2 of the 3 major manufacters (USSR, USA and Germany).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6xLMUifbxQ&t=1580s

Oh yeah, that's a great video for showcasing exactly what the Soviet Union did right during the war. Definitely worth a watch for anyone who's interested in the logistical end of history.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 15:43

Ograbme: Jul 26, 2003; D--n it, how he nicks 'em

swampman posted:

This is a distortion of what you've just read. The USSR did not "carve up" Poland. They entered ungoverned territory, with its government incommunicado, to defend their own borders and to retake territory stolen in 1921. The government did not just abdicate, it vanished. I don't know if you comprehend what a crime against the Polish people that was.

Poland did not invade the Soviet Union.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 15:59

Famethrowa: Oct 5, 2012

swampman posted:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol38no5/html/v38i5a10p.htm
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article08.html
http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/09/06/history-cia-funded-foundations/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/04/07/the-cia-is-back-on-campus/

Man, with the CIA controlling all academic thought with one journal, it's amazing Furr hasn't been sent to a gulag yet.

edit: guess what I should have said is, "evidence for a massive CIA conspiracy to force histography rightwards".

and you come up with a single CIA funded journal lmao.

Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Apr 5, 2016

# ? Apr 5, 2016 16:24

ugh its Troika: May 2, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

Why is it that communists seem to be unable to think critically in any fashion?

# ? Apr 5, 2016 17:05

Brainiac Five: Mar 28, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

Flocons de Jambon posted:

The Allies later invaded Vichy Algeria.

You found an actual equivalent. Well done. Alas for you, I said that the invasion of Poland was morally defensible.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 17:23

Gaj: Apr 30, 2006

Also cant we just as easily say that the American-Allied actions against Vichy France are tempered by their post war actions and intentions? Yeah the Brits bombed the French fleet, and they then restored the French state as an independent sovereign nation. The argument that "no government=no country" is so childishly laughable Eddie Izzard made fun of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8

Stalinist's are literally using a satire of colonial-imperialist arguments to defend aggressive expansion. Great.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 17:54

Brainiac Five: Mar 28, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

Gaj posted:

Also cant we just as easily say that the American-Allied actions against Vichy France are tempered by their post war actions and intentions? Yeah the Brits bombed the French fleet, and they then restored the French state as an independent sovereign nation. The argument that "no government=no country" is so childishly laughable Eddie Izzard made fun of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8

Stalinist's are literally using a satire of colonial-imperialist arguments to defend aggressive expansion. Great.

Well, their intentions of restoring French control of Algeria and Morocco aren't to their credit, and the biggest motivation was simple military expediency. Not that this makes Operation Torch morally abhorrent.

# ? Apr 5, 2016 17:59

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 11:41

Famethrowa: Oct 5, 2012

Gaj posted:

Also cant we just as easily say that the American-Allied actions against Vichy France are tempered by their post war actions and intentions? Yeah the Brits bombed the French fleet, and they then restored the French state as an independent sovereign nation. The argument that "no government=no country" is so childishly laughable Eddie Izzard made fun of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8

Stalinist's are literally using a satire of colonial-imperialist arguments to defend aggressive expansion. Great.

The ussr was arguably as colonial as the United States :ssh:

# ? Apr 5, 2016 18:08

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > ""Critically"" ""Evaluating"" Grover Furr's Blood Lies

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