Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
Domenico Losurdo's book "Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend" has been cited as a reference in this thread. However, I do not think Losurdo’s book is dependable. For one thing, his portrayal of Isaac Deutscher as considering "the Moscow Trials more or less reliable" (on the page that was reproduced above) is a gross distortion of Deutscher's views. Anyone who has read Deutscher's "Stalin" can see that the author argues the exact opposite. A similar dishonesty is seen in Losurdo’s plucking from Deutscher an alleged “factual truth regarding the execution of Tukhachevsky." The trumped-up charges against Tukhachevsky had to do with his supposedly taking part in a plot with Trotsky along with the German Wehrmacht to overthrow the regime headed by Stalin. In actuality, Deutscher (in a note on p. 409 of the paperback edition) merely relates how in 1922, the Soviet Politburo — led by Lenin — authorized Tukhachevsky and Trotsky to negotiate with the Wehrmacht to station unemployed soldiers and technicians on Russian soil to help train the Red Army. In return, Germany was allowed to conduct "experiments" in Russia that the Versailles Treaty had prohibited them from carrying out in Germany. This exchange, Deutsher reports, continued until 1935, at which time both Stalin and Hitler were firmly in power. Deutscher says nothing about Tukhachevsky cooking up a plot with the Wehrmacht against Stalin. In regard to the 1934 assassination of Sergei Kirov by a young dissident Communist, Losurdo uses the event to note while Trotsky* might *not have been directly involved, “his reaction gives food for thought." Losurdo then points out (the horror!) that Trotsky expressed hatred for Kirov and neglected to wholeheartedly condemn the assassin. He goes on to state that Trotsky had written extensively over the years on the uses of terrorism and offers a few quotations on the subject, but adds that although Trotsky had expressed himself as being against individual terrorism, “this is a clarification that is not entirely convincing.” He quotes for good coin Ruth Fisher (the Austrian-German Communist who in the 1950s collaborated with HUAC and the McCarthyite anti-Communist inquisition) in saying that Trotsky saw himself as a "kind of Red Bonaparte,” who sought a coup d’etat against the Old Guard of the Bolshevik Party (an alleged plot that was said to have provoked Trotsky's expulsion from the USSR). He follows this with quotes from others who offer reports that the Trotskyist Left Opposition was at work sabotaging railways and power plants. Losurdo does not bother to gather factual information to corroborate such reports. In my opinion, though Losurdo’s book purports to give a realistic appraisal of Stalin, it is not worth very much as a factual source in gaining an accurate accounting of the views and actions of Stalin, Trotsky, or any other figures in the Soviet leadership, or in evaluating the Moscow Trials. The author employs a huge grab bag of quotations from various political personalities and commentators, some of which are interesting while others seem entirely far fetched. He then weaves these quotations into his narrative of plots and counterplots within the Communist spectrum, with little regard for their political context. His dishonest reference to Deutscher’s conclusions and his glib use of unreliable testimony, like that of Ruth Fisher, illustrate the poor scholarship of his book. On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 1:00 PM Marv Gandall via groups.io wrote: > Michael P. refers us to the historians Deutscher, Daniels, and Losurdo, > each having suggested that the Moscow trials were primarily based on > objective threats to Stalin’s regime rather than, as is often claimed, his > supposed paranoid personality > > There is no question but that the regime faced serious organized > opposition across the political spectrum. At one end were the agents of the > old czarist order and imperialist powers who had bitterly opposed the > Bolshevik Revolution and wanted to restore capitalism in the USSR. At the > other end were the Old Bolsheviks who made no secret of wanting to remove > Stalin - by force, if necessary - but in the interests of the revolution > they had themselves organized and led. Their goal was a political rather > than a social revolution, a change of regime rather the destruction of > social and economic foundations of the new Soviet society. > > Stalin and his subordinates were therefore justified in fearing these > threats, particularly from the Old Bolsheviks. Both the Right and Left > Opposition had supporters within the party, the bureaucracy, and the > military, the latter including Marshal Tukhachevsky, who was among the > notables purged and executed as a “Trotskyist”. > > This is the context in which Deutscher, Daniels, and even Losurdo viewed > the Moscow Trials. But none AFAIK gave any credibility or provided any > evidence to support the official justification for them - that the > Opposition
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
Michael P. refers us to the historians Deutscher, Daniels, and Losurdo, each having suggested that the Moscow trials were primarily based on objective threats to Stalin’s regime rather than, as is often claimed, his supposed paranoid personality There is no question but that the regime faced serious organized opposition across the political spectrum. At one end were the agents of the old czarist order and imperialist powers who had bitterly opposed the Bolshevik Revolution and wanted to restore capitalism in the USSR. At the other end were the Old Bolsheviks who made no secret of wanting to remove Stalin - by force, if necessary - but in the interests of the revolution they had themselves organized and led. Their goal was a political rather than a social revolution, a change of regime rather the destruction of social and economic foundations of the new Soviet society. Stalin and his subordinates were therefore justified in fearing these threats, particularly from the Old Bolsheviks. Both the Right and Left Opposition had supporters within the party, the bureaucracy, and the military, the latter including Marshal Tukhachevsky, who was among the notables purged and executed as a “Trotskyist”. This is the context in which Deutscher, Daniels, and even Losurdo viewed the Moscow Trials. But none AFAIK gave any credibility or provided any evidence to support the official justification for them - that the Opposition within the party was allied with the revanchist White reactionaries and fascist powers outside of it. Above, I mocked the most ridiculous of the regime’s claims - that the roots of the conspiracy were traceable to plotting by Bukharin and others to assassinate Lenin in the midst of the civil war. Poor Lenin! Such a hard-headed and brilliant political tactician and student of world affairs, but such a poor judge of human character! Lenin the innocent who surrounded himself with those most bent on destroying him - notably Trotsky, the future leader of the Left Opposition, whom he entrusted with command of the Red Army, and Bukharin, the future leader of the Right Opposition whom Lenin called " a most valuable and major theorist ...rightly considered the favorite of the whole Party”. In fact, as we know, Lenin was an astute observer of the strengths and weaknesses of Trotsky, Bukharin, Stalin and others within the Bolshevik leadership and, together with his associates, would have quickly unmasked any mortal enemies within it. The 1918 plot can’t be seen apart from the 1938 trials, as Vyshinsky insisted under Stalin’s direction and doubtless with his approval. They rise or fall together as part of the same narrative, and it is the spectacular fabrication about Old Bolshevik traitors in Lenin's midst planning to take his life which gives conspiracy theorists like Furr the most difficulty. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39850): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39850 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
‘Bukharin—The Path of a Traitor’ by V.J. Jerome from The Communist. Vol. 17 Nos. 6 & 7. June & July, 1938. ( https://revolutionsnewsstand.com/2024/03/20/bukharin-the-path-of-a-traitor-by-v-j-jerome-from-the-communist-vol-17-nos-6-7-june-july-1938/ ) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39848): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39848 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
The " Fragrant Flowers ( http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/insults-vysh.html#flowers ) " of Prosecutor A. Ya. Vyshinsky's Rhetoric - http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/insults-vysh.html > liars and buffoons, contemptible pygmies, pug dogs and puppies, attempting to mount an elephant... utterly base scoundrels... vile creatures --A. Ya. Vyshinsky at Zinoviev trial I demand that these mad dogs be shot -- each and every one of them! --A. Ya. Vyshinsky at 1936 Zinoviev trial dregs of society... rotted people... terrorist thugs and degenerates Kindly tell us when you renewed your anti-Soviet criminal activity --A. Ya. Vyshinsky to L. Serebryakov, at Jan 1937 Pyatakov-Radek trial We demand the vermin and all their followers be mercilessly exterminated --some "humanist doctors" at 1937 trial of Radek, Pyatakov scum... stinking carrion... manure --A. Ya Vyshinsky at 1938 Bukharin trial a stinking pile of human refuse... the most contemptible, the most incorrigible and decayed dishonorable elements... accursed vermin... accursed cross between a fox and a swine --A.Ya Vyshinsky at 1938 Bukharin trial Time will pass. The graves of the odious traitors will be overgrown with weeds, covered with the eternal contempt of Soviet people, of the whole Soviet nation. But over us, over our happy country, our sun will shine with its bright rays as clearly and joyfully as before. We, our nation, will walk as we did before, on a road cleansed of the last impurity and vileness of the past, following our beloved leader and teacher -- the great Stalin -- forward and ever forward, to Communism! --A.Ya. Vyshinsky at the 1938 Bukharin trial https://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2003/2003-April/009814.html -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39847): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39847 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
"In 1946, Ernest Hemingway visited the New York offices of the Communist newspaper, the* Daily Worker*. The famous, towering author walked up to the receptionist and asked to speak to a columnist who happened to be out at the time. “Ok,” he said, “tell Mike Gold that Ernest Hemingway says he should go fuck himself.” More @ https://jacobin.com/2022/10/mike-gold-proletarian-literature-communist-party-american-radicalism See, as well, https://daily.jstor.org/michael-gold-red-scare-victim/ > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39840): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39840 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
On Wed, Dec 24, 2025 at 11:04 AM, Tom Walker wrote: > > If two-thirds of the Old Bolsheviks were a fifth column conspiring with > the Nazis, then they ALL were. Every God-forsaken one of them. Including > Lenin. Not so. Lenin, Stalin, and Sverdlov were targets of these traitors as far back as 1918. We know this from Bukharin's testimony under questioning at his trial two decades later. It's been alleged that Bukharin and others from the bloc of Rights and Trotskyites confessed under torture or in order to secure more lenient sentances or to save their immediate family members from prosecution, but false confessions obtained by torture or plea bargaining is, as we know, characteristic of capitalist regimes and would have been considered a violation of socialist legality in the Soviet Union under Stalin. In fact, Stalin replaced both Yagoda and Yezhov as respective heads of the NKVD when he learned each had abused their authority. Bukharin tried to save his own skin, or at least that of his wife Anna Larina, by confessing that he and his co-conspirators only wanted to "arrest" Lenin although, as prosecutor Vyshinsky made clear, they wanted to assassinate him. Doubters can consult the full transcript of Vyshinsky's interogation of Bukharin at https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1938/trial/1.htm -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39839): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39839 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
Tom Walker via groups.io: " If two-thirds of the Old Bolsheviks were a fifth column conspiring with the Nazis, then they ALL were. Every God-forsaken one of them. Including Lenin" Furthermore, the term Leninist vanguard partywould be just brief black humor, and to be sure, any adherent of this type of party, including Stalinists, would consequently be a pure idiot.. JA -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39838): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39838 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
On Tue, Dec 23, 2025 at 09:48 PM, Mark Baugher wrote: > > "Anyone" or practically everyone? > If two-thirds of the Old Bolsheviks were a fifth column conspiring with the Nazis, then they ALL were. Every God-forsaken one of them. Including Lenin. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39836): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39836 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
I did not read the evidence but John Dewey led a team of outside investigators who concluded that virtually all the charges against the "Trotskyites" (a derogatory term by the way) and the "Right Opposition" were completely bogus --- Yes, (according to Isaac Deutscher) some military leaders decided that Stalin was basically insane and tried to kill him (and failed) -- but supposedly that was AFTER he had engaged in extraordiniary purges, etc. So I would be willing to concede that some tiny percentage of the people accused were "guilty" but only because of the "law of averages" not because of any real evidence produced at the so-called "trials"! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39834): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39834 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
> On Dec 23, 2025, at 20:13, Charles via groups.io > wrote: > > So, did the fifth column include anyone who had earlier had a prominent place > in the regime or the party? "Anyone" or practically everyone? Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39832): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39832 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [marxmail] ML Today: Mike Gold On Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
On Tue, Dec 23, 2025 at 12:05 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: > > gullible acceptance of the Old Bolshevik/Fascist conspiracy theory Well, Gold's opening sentence is, "The Soviet people rooted out and destroyed the Fifth Column." Was there a fifth column - a conspiracy or conspiracies of people who aimed to bring down the Soviet regime? It is a naive person who thinks there was none. So, did the fifth column include anyone who had earlier had a prominent place in the regime or the party? It is a naive person who thinks there were none. So, who were some of them? You would need to study the evidence. To get the evidence, you need help from someone who knows the Russian language and who is not set on vilifying the Soviet regime of the 1930s, nor set on glorifying it without factual grounds. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39831): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39831 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116918463/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
