[Marxism] Katyn Massacre
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. * Tomorrow I have an article about the films of Andrzej Wajda scheduled for Counterpunch. In doing some research on Wajda, I discovered that his father was killed in the Katyn Massacre. Following up on that, I discovered that Roger Annis views that as a hoax just like the Holodomor. How did anybody trained in the Trotskyist movement end up going so astray? http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/10/another-flawed-and-biased-report-on-ukraine-by-the-un-human-rights-office/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * Thanks, I'll check that out. I can't really say much without a knowledge of Russian; I'm guessing you know Russian to check his work? The lack of work on primary sources from scholars not committed to Anti-Communism, Stalinism, or Trotskyism is important to moving away from great men of history theories that obscure structuralist analysis, is it not? On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 10:47 AM, DW via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: 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. * Glenn: I realize that some people on this list will not read anything written by Grover Furr Why would this be? I read his work and I can't find much to argue with methodologically. Really? Interesting. His method is terrible, IMO. If you read his most important work Khrushchev Lied which purports to show evidence that Trotsky collaborated not only with the Nazis but with the Japanese Monarchy is based on the *exact* same methodology...that is the frame up...used by Vishinsky in his prosecution and eventual murder of the Old Bolsheviks in 1937...that is: confessions. The confessionary strategy of prosecution was based on the sheer *terror* of being threatened with death, or one's family, and without the right of cross examination. Furr's supposes that no one had a reason to lie thus all the testimony must be true. A good smashing of Grover's method in his defense of the Moscow Trials is here: *http://tinyurl.com/lspl7np http://tinyurl.com/lspl7np* Their site appears to be down this morning but check in later. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/mediacrusher%40gmail.com -- J.A. Masko College of Communications Penn State University State College, Pa 16801 “There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.” -Werner Herzog, “LESSONS OF DARKNESS” _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * On 02 Mar 2015, at 5:47 PM, DW via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: A good smashing of Grover's method in his defense of the Moscow Trials is here: *http://tinyurl.com/lspl7np http://tinyurl.com/lspl7np* Their site appears to be down this morning but check in later. Cached version here: http://bit.ly/1zzDPyU _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * Glenn: I realize that some people on this list will not read anything written by Grover Furr Why would this be? I read his work and I can't find much to argue with methodologically. Really? Interesting. His method is terrible, IMO. If you read his most important work Khrushchev Lied which purports to show evidence that Trotsky collaborated not only with the Nazis but with the Japanese Monarchy is based on the *exact* same methodology...that is the frame up...used by Vishinsky in his prosecution and eventual murder of the Old Bolsheviks in 1937...that is: confessions. The confessionary strategy of prosecution was based on the sheer *terror* of being threatened with death, or one's family, and without the right of cross examination. Furr's supposes that no one had a reason to lie thus all the testimony must be true. A good smashing of Grover's method in his defense of the Moscow Trials is here: *http://tinyurl.com/lspl7np http://tinyurl.com/lspl7np* Their site appears to be down this morning but check in later. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * Glenn Kissack said: The SD article addresses this: By 1992 the Soviet, and then the Russian, governments had officially declared the Stalin-era Soviet leadership guilty of shooting somewhere between 14,800 and 22,000 Polish prisoners to death in April and May 1940. This was agreeable to anticommunists and a bone in the throat for some pro-Soviet people. For a few years it did appear that the matter was basically settled. The evidence seemed clear: the Soviets had shot the Poles. The author then goes on to show that several Russian writers began to question the verdict and discovered archival information throwing the official version into question. Take a look, it’s interesting. Ken Hiebert replies: We have rather quickly reached the limit of my knowledge of this issue. Until today I could not have told you where Katyn is. Based on what has appeared on this list and what we can read on Wikipedia I think we can agree that these officers were in the Soviet Union as prisoners of the Soviet government. If it was the Nazis who carried out the massacre, my first question would be how did these officers become prisoners of the Nazis? In any case, my thanks to those who have drawn our attention to the article in Socialism and Democracy. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * Your Friend Alex said (in part): Nationalist Poles for example, whine about Katyn etc but they leave out the part where they fought against the Soviet Republic, supported Pilsudski and the dictator after him who organized the occupations of western Belarus and western Ukraine. The Polish imperialists treated the Jewish masses harshly, severely repressing all but the zionists. Both sides fought each other, many times with massacres, repressions and extra-judicial executions. From the Soviet side, for example, one can see the logic of executing the officer caste and bourgeois intellectuals of Poland as repression of western counter-revolution- most of those executed supported their bourgeoisie against the USSR. It is a crime that members of the communist opposition and artist class were murdered in a political and cultural-counter-revolution but I don't feel the same way at all about Polish imperialist collaborators. Ken Hiebert replies: There are still some people who deny that this massacre was carried out by Stalin. The last time I looked the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) said that the massacre was committed by the Nazis. This is interesting to me because the CPC (M-L) is not a totally isolated sect. Eg., a supporter of theirs is (or was) president of the USWA local at Stelco in Hamilton, Ontario. http://www.thespec.com/news-story/2237045-rolf-gerstenberger-acclaimed-as-head-of-uswa-1005/ I believe the massacre was committed by Stalin. According to one account I read, after the massacre, Stalin had the Red Army soldiers involved shot. They were, after all, witnesses to the events. Whatever Stalin thought he was achieving at the time, this massacre has poisoned relations between Russia and Poland for decades. We could characterize this as whining, but what would that change? And the stain on the Russian Revolution does not stop there. Visitors to Toronto can find in the West End a monument to the victims of the massacre. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * There are still some people who deny that this massacre was carried out by Stalin. The last time I looked the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) said that the massacre was committed by the Nazis. This is interesting to me because the CPC (M-L) is not a totally isolated sect. Eg., a supporter of theirs is (or was) president of the USWA local at Stelco in Hamilton, Ontario. http://www.thespec.com/news-story/2237045-rolf-gerstenberger-acclaimed-as-head-of-uswa-1005/ I believe the massacre was committed by Stalin. According to one account I read, after the massacre, Stalin had the Red Army soldiers involved shot. They were, after all, witnesses to the events. Ken: I’ve always believed the Polish officers were killed by the Soviet army. Then Socialism and Democracy published this in 2013: http://sdonline.org/62/the-official-version-of-the-katyn-massacre-disproven-2/ http://sdonline.org/62/the-official-version-of-the-katyn-massacre-disproven-2/ It’s a well-researched examination of the Katyn massacre, which raises serious doubts about the official version that blames all the deaths on the Red Army. I realize that some people on this list will not read anything written by Grover Furr, but he reads Russian and appears to have done a prodigious amount of research. He doesn’t exonerate the Soviets so much as point out serious discrepancies with the official version. Glenn _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * Glenn: I realize that some people on this list will not read anything written by Grover Furr Why would this be? I read his work and I can't find much to argue with methodologically. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * I'm sure many on the list know of Grover Furr's work on Stalinism; his The Official” Version of the Katyn Massacre Disproven? Discoveries at a German Mass Murder Site in Ukraine was published in Socialism and Democracy (2013) Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 96 -129 with the PDF available online. How does one answer his case without resorting to calling him a Stalin apologist? Others must know the case much better than I, but he makes a compelling case when considered along with Lih's recounting of Lenin that accounts of the period are hopelessly mired in anti-soviet vitrol. Jacobin's article https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/timothy-snyders-lies/on Timothy Snyder *Bloodlands* covers nothing that Furr hasn't already pointed out but is a start in addressing the fabrications that go along with the territory. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * I am not suggesting that Wikepedia is a final authority, but I found this excerpt interesting. What would be the motivation for acknowledging guilt if the matter is still in dispute? ken h http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943. When the London-based Polish government-in-exile asked for an investigation by the International Red Cross, Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with it. The Soviet Union claimed the victims had been murdered by the Nazis in 1941, and continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the perpetration of the killings by the NKVD, as well as the subsequent cover-up by the Soviet government.[1][2][3][a] An investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Soviet Union (1990–1991) and the Russian Federation (1991–2004) confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres, but refused to classify this action as a war crime or an act of genocide. The investigation was closed on the grounds that the perpetrators of the massacre were already dead, and since the Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of Stalinist repression, formal posthumous rehabilitation was deemed inapplicable.[4] In November 2010, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the massacre.[5] _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: . . . Whatever Stalin thought he was achieving at the time, this massacre has poisoned relations between Russia and Poland for decades. . . Of course it isn't like Russian-Polish relations were rosy before then. We can start way back before the 1790s partitions that resulted in Poland being completely wiped off the map, the majority becoming part of the Russian empire. We can jump forward to the Poland-Soviet Russia war of 1920-21, followed in later 20s and 30s with Stalin's pruning and purging of the Communist Party of Poland until he liquidated the leadership and finally dissolved it in 1938. This cleared the way for the Stalin-Hitler pact of August 1939 secretly dividing Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union and opening the way to WWII. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Katyn massacre
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. * I regret those exaggerated last six words ...and opening the way to WWII. It would have been better to at least add these words to the phrase: ...and opening the way to the beginning of WWII warfare. Or better to just leave off those last six words. On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 5:57 PM, Dayne Goodwin daynegood...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: . . . Whatever Stalin thought he was achieving at the time, this massacre has poisoned relations between Russia and Poland for decades. . . Of course it isn't like Russian-Polish relations were rosy before then. We can start way back before the 1790s partitions that resulted in Poland being completely wiped off the map, the majority becoming part of the Russian empire. We can jump forward to the Poland-Soviet Russia war of 1920-21, followed in later 20s and 30s with Stalin's pruning and purging of the Communist Party of Poland until he liquidated the leadership and finally dissolved it in 1938. This cleared the way for the Stalin-Hitler pact of August 1939 secretly dividing Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union and opening the way to WWII. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
