Broué had an article in an early issue of Revolutionary History magazine where he writes that he was shocked to discover this. It was one set letters to his son, Sedov, in 1932 I think. This was all before he called for the building of a new international or political revolution (1937).
I suspect, as did Broué (many had conversations with him on this question), that his admitting he had contact with his son in Berlin would of endangered the developing opposition to Stalin if he were admit to such conversations. So this wasn't a "lie" in any colloquial sense whatsoever. It was an important tactic to keep Stalin's oppressive apparatus at bay to some degree. Getty's (who died last year) perspective is that Purges were murder, repressive, and dictatorial by the regime. Getty was an anti-Communist scholar as well. But he argues if you read his book, that Beria and Stalin believed there was a conspiracy and that this was the motivating factor, starting he says in 1932 if memory serves me correctly. Trotskyist scholars like Broué and Jean Jaque-Marie argue the purges were 100% political, to stymie and developing opposition around Zinoviev, Kamanev, Mikhail Tukhachevsky (who was of course the Red Army Field Marshal under Trotsky during and after the Civil War but was never an oppositionist). 1932 was a year where there was a regrowth of political opposition within the Communist Party to the rising bureaucracy and the bubbling of this resistance was noted by Beria and others part of the Bureaucracy. Various ideas were floated, it seems, including "getting rid of Stalin". Trotsky, in these same letters unearthed by Broué, argues vehemently against this. I'd read Greene's piece in Left Voice for a synopsis of Furr, et al. David -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42970): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42970 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/120720019/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
