|
Post by Springa on Jul 22, 2005 1:12:51 GMT -5
evil Bolsheviks [90% of whom happened to be Jewish] were on a rampage in Russia. Not really true. Jews were definitely disproportionally represented in the party (as they were only about 5% of the total population), but they were MUCH less than 90%, even in the central comitee, not to mention in the party as a whole. Actually, in the 1918 central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union there were 15 people, out of which 6 were jews. This was the highest percentage of jews in the leadership of the party in all of the USSRs history. And it's 40%, not 90%.
And when these Bolsheviks came in, was it a lie that they slaughtered millions in purges? Yes it is a lie. The purges didn't happen when the Bolsheviks came in. They happened years later when Stalin had already conquered power and were directed towards people in the party, in other words, other Bolsheviks. That's why they're called purges, because he was purging the party from undesirable elements (to him). By the way, many of these undesirables were not only Bolsheviks but also Jewish, and if I'm not mistaken, every single one of those original 90% of jews in the first central comitees were purged by Stalin. Who was not jewish. The purges, if anything, were what got rid of the jews in the Bolshevik party. Definitely not something perpetrated by Jews. In 1961, Jews were supposedly 0.3% of the central committee.
And before the accusations begin, I'm not defending any regime or ideology here, just proper history.
|
|
|
Post by Ilmatar on Jul 22, 2005 5:49:48 GMT -5
Springa, thank you for anticipating me and looking for proper figures, not just for some wild numbers from such second hand sources as an early 20th century politician or a Pan-Slavist writer/scientist.
It's also great that you spread some light on the early history of the Soviet Union. I would like to add that yes, millions died after the coming of power of the Bolsheviks, but that there was actually a full-blown civil war with three different parties fighting each other in Russia from 1918 to 1920. In addition there was a great famine in 1921, caused by the Bolshevik land reform and aggravated by bad years in 1920 and 1921. The war and the famine were much more effective killers than the early bolshevik "purges" directed to mensheviks and the Russian upper class.
And I too would like to say that I'm not here to defend anyone, but to set the historic events to the right timeline.
|
|
|
Post by Drooperdoo on Jul 22, 2005 7:37:28 GMT -5
Springa, The purges in Russia started under Lenin, not Stalin. Lenin was responsible for the deaths of millions. Then he died--and Stalin carried on the good work. (Though Stalin was responsible for far more killing--most notably the purposeful starving of perhaps as high as 30 million in the Ukraine--Lenin murdered millions in purges, too.) It's humorous today to see the historical revisionism going on. Jewish intellectuals supported Bolshevism the world over. They had no idea what was really going on. When they did, they distanced themselves from the Communist state--and attributed all the killing to Stalin, the Gentile . . . in a pale attempt to imply that their heroes Lenin and Trotsky didn't murder anyone. In fact, they murdered literally millions of people before Stalin ever came to power. Read more on the subject of Lenin's crimes--lest you help disreputable hirelings in ther attempts to re-write the past in their agenda of historical revisionism. P.S.--It's also humorous to look on as they try to turn Stalin into an antisemite. Stalin married three times--all three of his wives were Jewish. His children were half-Jewish. (All of his best friends and colleagues were Jewish. And when the Soviet Union officially carried on a policy of atheism and closed all Christian churches, Jewish synagogues were allowed to remain. Even Winston Churchill talked about the "Jewish character" of Bolshevism and how it was accentuated when the USSR persecuted Christians while allowing synagogues to stand untouched.) Furthermore, during this so-called "antisemitic man's" attack on Jews, he appointed Jews--and almost exclusively Jews--to every powerful position within the NKVD [the former version of the KGB] and throughout all of the Soviet Union's satellite states. The myth of his antisemitism is shot with massive holes. I will concede that, during the final years of his regime, he started to wonder if the power dynamic had shifted in politics due to the formation of the nation of Israel. (For it was then that Russia ceased to be "the great experiment" of the Jewish intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s.) Russian Jews were flooding out of the old Soviet Union and selling secrets to the US. [That's why Israel became a tactical asset to America during the Cold War.] It was then that Stalin started to feel betrayed--since money that had poured into the Soviet Union from liberal "financiers" in the West was now going to Israel, and many of his former Jewish friends were now lobbying for nuclear weapons on behalf of Israel. He fought against a nuclear-armed Israel. It was only then that the most powerful "interest groups" (with ties to the Jewish State) started agitating for his removal. Stalin would not budge, though. So plot after plot to murder him began. He finally retaliated by starting a campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" [his codeword for international Jewish types]. Most historians largely concede today that Stalin was probably poisoned--and most liklely by the Jewish doctors that he started to distrust . . . alas, too late in his corrupt, corrosive, malicious life. P.P.S.--Here's a link to Churchill's 1920 newspaper article, which briefly mentions the difference in treatment accorded to Christians and Jews under the Soviets. www.fpp.co.uk/bookchapters/WSC/WSCwrote1920.html
|
|
|
Post by Drooperdoo on Jul 22, 2005 8:34:30 GMT -5
Check out this link www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-14/yevtushenko3.html INTERVIEW WITH YEVGENI YEVTUSHENKO [Here's an excerpt:] INT: So when you were a young man and you began to discover this, you heard it first hand from people who'd been through the concentration camps. What effect did that have on people of your generation, this revelation of the truth from them? YY: First of all, it must not to be repeated in the future, first of all. And only way it's to completely strip mask from the Stalin. But it was one mistake of our generatio, very typical for my generation, because we began to discover the truth about Stalin, but we didn't know all truth about Lenin: we idealized Lenin because we didn't know many documents wwere hidden in archives. And so we were fighting against the shadow of Stalin with the name of Lenin, and we didn't understand at that time that... Stalin was, unfortunately for Lenin, his very faithful disciple. Because, for instance, we didn't know at that time that Lenin was a man who signed first degree [sic] about the first concentration camp for political prisoners in 1918. We didn't know that Lenin, not anybody else, he was accusing Stalin [of] being too soft, too liberal. And when we began to discover this truth, when we... We didn't know that Lenin was behind the decision to kill Tsar's family, we didn't know that Lenin was signing many notes, secret notes to Cheka, which was first name of KGB, to Dzerzhinsky, to be pitiless, to hang some peasants, to hang some so-called burzhuis, bourgeois, and even to put these so-called burzhuis on the battlefield as human shield covering Red Guards, which is... was crime itself. So... and now I understand. I couldn't, of course, say that Stalin and Lenin were equal [sic] figures, but Lenin was really... Stalin called him his "father", and our generation [of] writer(s), we called Stalin a traitor who betrayed Lenin's ideals. It was not true: Stalin was realizing Lenin's ideals, Lenin's ... he was fulfilling Lenin's instructions. But it's late discovery of our generation.
|
|
|
Post by Springa on Jul 22, 2005 17:41:25 GMT -5
First of all, I don't really think Stalin was personaly an "antisemite" nor do I care. I don't really think his personal persuasions and taste really matter. What matters is data, which is widely available, on how many jews were in positions of leadership in, say 1921 and the 50's, when old uncle Joe died. Anyway, I think it's amusing that you call people revisionists when one post ago you were talking about 90% of the Bolsheviks being jews. I'd pay money to see you defend stuff like that on a serious academic debate. Also, you need to learn a little bit more about what the purges really were. The Bolsheviks could have deliberately killed millions before Stalin or even trillions and it would still not have anything to do with purges. The purges were not every political murder in Russia. The purges were the removal of people from the party, many of whom, but not all, were killed. To purge means to expell, to remove, to take away, and of course there were purges from the party as early as 1921. But the purges where millions were killed, where there were mass trials and the whole thing were a specific moment of Russian history, to a specific process which began to take place systematically under Stalin, as everybody knows. The first big one was in 1929/30 and in 1932 it started to become a systematic practice with all the consequences we're aware of. Then in 1936 there was "the big one", the beginning of what they call the great purges (when Trotsky, for instance, was sent to exile), when the term stopped meaning simple expulsion from the party and became associated with almost certain death or imprisonment. Anyway, it has nothing to do with Jews, which was the whole initial point of this discussion. It wasn't the Jews who were behind it by any sense. Outside of the purges, large size mass murder started during the forced collectivisation of land around the same time. This is accepted history as learned in schools all over the world, and the official history of the Soviet Union. Doesn't mean it's neccessarily the truth, of course. But it means it not "revisionism". Revisionism is when you tell a different version of hostory than the one normally accepted by most people. You're the one doing that when you talk about the Jewish 90%, about the millions purged (as in killed) before Stalin and so on. Please back it up with serious sources. If you expect people to dedicate time to your arguments, please get serious, provide data and stop calling "revisionism" everything that disagrees with what you say. Remember, you're the one with the controversial opinions here, not me. Everything I said is pretty standard and accepted. Again, it doesn't neccessarily mean I'm right. But it means I'm not a revisionist of any sort. Springa, The purges in Russia started under Lenin, not Stalin. Lenin was responsible for the deaths of millions. Then he died--and Stalin carried on the good work. (Though Stalin was responsible for far more killing--most notably the purposeful starving of perhaps as high as 30 million in the Ukraine--Lenin murdered millions in purges, too.) It's humorous today to see the historical revisionism going on. Jewish intellectuals supported Bolshevism the world over. They had no idea what was really going on. When they did, they distanced themselves from the Communist state--and attributed all the killing to Stalin, the Gentile . . . in a pale attempt to imply that their heroes Lenin and Trotsky didn't murder anyone. In fact, they murdered literally millions of people before Stalin ever came to power. Read up on the subject before attempting embarrassing cases of historical revisionism. P.S.--It's also humorous to look on as they try to turn Stalin into an antisemite. Stalin married three times--all three of his wives were Jewish. His children were half-Jewish. (All of his best friends and colleagues were Jewish. And when the Soviet Union officially carried on a policy of atheism and closed all Christian churches, Jewish synagogues were allowed to remain. Even Winston Churchill talked about the "Jewish character" of Bolshevism and how it was accentuated when the USSR persecuted Christians while allowing synagogues to stand untouched.) Furthermore, during this so-called "antisemitic man's" attack on Jews, he appointed Jews--and almost exclusively Jews--to every powerful position within the NKVD [the former version of the KGB] and throughout all of the Soviet Union's satellite states. The myth of his antisemitism is shot with massive holes. I will concede that, during the final years of his regime, he started to wonder if the power dynamic had shifted in politics due to the formation of the nation of Israel. (For it was then that Russia ceased to be "the great experiment" of the Jewish intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s.) Russian Jews were flooding out of the old Soviet Union and selling secrets to the US. [That's why Israel became a tactical asset to America during the Cold War.] It was then that Stalin started to feel betrayed--since money that had poured into the Soviet Union from liberal "financiers" in the West was now going to Israel, and many of his former Jewish friends were now lobbying for nuclear weapons on behalf of Israel. He fought against a nuclear-armed Israel. It was only then that the most powerful "interest groups" (with ties to the Jewish State) started agitating for his removal. Stalin would not budge, though. So plot after plot to murder him began. He finally retaliated by starting a campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" [his codeword for international Jewish types]. Most historians largely concede today that Stalin was probably poisoned--and most liklely by the Jewish doctors that he started to distrust . . . alas, too late in his corrupt, corrosive, malicious life. P.P.S.--Here's a link to Churchill's 1920 newspaper article, which briefly mentions the difference in treatment accorded to Christians and Jews under the Soviets. www.fpp.co.uk/bookchapters/WSC/WSCwrote1920.html
|
|
|
Post by Drooperdoo on Jul 22, 2005 19:14:18 GMT -5
Springa, I'll try desperately to maintain a dignified discourse with you. But believe me, it's hard when you twist things I've said. (But, perhaps, you aren't twisting things. I'm wholly ready to accept that the error might be mine--in not articulating what I mean successfully.) First of all, I wasn't saying that everyone in the Communist party was Jewish. Jews didn't have the numbers to dominate the entire party--since every mechanic, performer, academic, administrator, plumber, etc had to be a member of the Party--since it was the one legal political party in the nation. What I meant to say was the LEADERSHIP of the Party was overwhemingly Jewish. L-E-A-D-E-R-S-H-I-P. And in the early days of the Bolshevik coup--before they could demand that the rest of the nation join the party--it was just a bunch of Marxist intellectuals--the overwhelming majority of whom happened to be Jewish. In a nation where they were a 3-4% of the population, they were, like, 90% of the first Soviet Council. I mean, my God--even the guy who invented it was Jewish [Karl Marx]. So, of course, it appealed to Jewish intellectuals first before it spread out to wider circles. Read the link I posted to Winston Churchill's 1920s article. He's no one's idea of an antisemite, but he doesn't skirt the facts. Even though--in modern times--many people have gone to great lengths to re-tailor history to minimize their embarrassing role in Bolshevism. So I leave as my testament that article by Mr. Churchill. Debate it with him. I'm sure if you check, all of his facts are in order. (These are just uncomfortable facts after the Holocaust. But they're facts, nevertheless--and they help explain the mood which led up to the Holocaust.)
Secondly, let me clarify how I used the word "purge". I respect your interpretation--namely, that purge can refer to rooting out members of a political party you don't like. Purge, however, can have a broader meaning . . . as in a sentence like this: "The Ukranian farmers refused to give up their land; as a result, the Soviet Council ordered that these counter-revolutionaries be PURGED from their new vision of society." I mean, if someone were to say "Hitler claimed he wanted to PURGE the nation of undesirables" I assume it would be understood that he was referring to Gypsies and Jews and such like people. In the context of that sentence, no one would say, "No, Hitler must have meant "members of his political party". In ordinary discourse--and the acceptable use of the very flexible English language--the term "purge" means simply that--to root out, extirpate, get rid of. The "purges of Russian society" that Lenin enacted in 1918 didn't refer to anyone belonging to his own political party; rather, he rounded up writers, academics and intellectuals precisely for the reason that they didn't belong to his party--and were therefore a threat. He had them shot, exiled [and later drafted plans for concentration camps that later came into existence as what we know today as 'gulags'.] But, please, before thinking me a bad person, or a rabble rouser, or a sociopath, please read the link to Churchill's article . . . and then go back and re-read my first post on this subject where I denounce people who persecuted German Jews for what Russian Jews did. Etc. I hope you'll have a better understanding of my position, when you see it unclouded by the emotion that naturally arises from touchy subjects like these.
|
|
|
Post by Springa on Jul 23, 2005 8:57:18 GMT -5
I'll try desperately to maintain a dignified discourse with you. But believe me, it's hard when you twist things I've said. (But, perhaps, you aren't twisting things. I'm wholly ready to accept that the error might be mine--in not articulating what I mean successfully.) First of all, I wasn't saying that everyone in the Communist party was Jewish. Jews didn't have the numbers to dominate the entire party--since every mechanic, performer, academic, administrator, plumber, etc had to be a member of the Party--since it was the one legal political party in the nation. What I meant to say was the LEADERSHIP of the Party was overwhemingly Jewish.
First you DID say, and I'm not twisting anything here, that "90% of the Bolsheviks were jewish. You did not specify leadership. Suspecting you might be talking about leadership (which you don't have to spell, since I've already used this word in the discussion since my last post), I also brought to your attention that even in 1918 the total number of Jews in the Central Comittee (leadership of the party) was 6, out of 15 members. That's 40%, not 90%. Please, drink a glass of water, say "serenity now" a few times and read my post again and you'll see I wasn't twisting your words.
the overwhelming majority of whom happened to be Jewish. In a nation where they were a 3-4% of the population, they were, like, 90% of the first Soviet Council. Not true. As I said, there were WAY more jews in the party than elsewhere, proportionally speaking. But the jews were not most of the party much less an "overwhelming majority", and 90%... I'm not even gonna get into that. Please share your sources with us. Anyway, the Soviets were originally workers councils, and the first one was formed in Ivanovna-Voznesensk in 1905, in a textile factory. The leader/delegate was Mikhail Frunze. He was not a Jew, he was a peasant from Turkistan. Next there were the St. Petersburg ones, formed mainly in textile factories. Most of the members were also not jews, unless most textile workers in St. Petersburg were Jews, which they weren't. But anyway, I'll give you that a prominent jew came out of this as the leader, Trotksy. But neither the 30-40 delegates of the very beginning not the 562 delegates of later on (before it was crushed) were mostly jewish. Simply not true.
I mean, my God--even the guy who invented it was Jewish [Karl Marx]. So, of course, it appealed to Jewish intellectuals first before it spread out to wider circles. Now tell me how the hell does that mean that 90% of the Bolsheviks were Jewish. Also, Marx's father we a convert to christianity and Marx himself was never overtly sympathetic to anything very jewish per se. It appealed to a loot of Jewish intellectuals because there was a lot of Jewish intellectuals then, wherever you have Jews you have intelectuals, I'll give you that. And also, and that's arguable, I believe it appealed to jews because of their cosmopolitanism, which was shared with original Marxism, and because they were an "oppressed minority" and oppressed minorities tend to like left wing ideology. Since they were an oppressed minority with university degrees and a naturally cosmopolitan culture, you got a target audience for Marx. Not because "Marx was Jewish", which is a very simplistic and not very logical claim. Sorry if I sound harsh. Anyway, there's NO WAY 90% of the Bolsheviks were Jews. Not leadership, not basis, not nothing. They weren't an absolute majority ever. I mean, not even 90% of the Israeli communist party is Jewish, come on...
Read the link I posted to Winston Churchill's 1920s article. He's no one's idea of an antisemite, but he doesn't skirt the facts. Even though--in modern times--many people have gone to great lengths to re-tailor history to minimize their embarrassing role in Bolshevism. So I leave as my testament that article by Mr. Churchill. Debate it with him. I'm sure if you check, all of his facts are in order. (These are just uncomfortable facts after the Holocaust. But they're facts, nevertheless--and they help explain the mood which led up to the Holocaust.) Churchill's article is very subjective and defending an agenda. There are plenty of actual books and documents about the history of Russia. You go check them out. Anyway, the way he puts it is way more plausible then yours, because, as far as I read it, he didn't make any claims about 90% of whatever and he pretty much said that the Jews were disproportionally represented there and that they led it, which is still reasonable and acceptable. You said, on the other hand, things that are simply factually wrong, not a matter of opinion, unless you got some very unknown documents to back it up, which I asked you to do and you came up with this article by Churchill.
Secondly, let me clarify how I used the word "purge". I respect your interpretation--namely, that purge can refer to rooting out members of a political party you don't like. Purge, however, can have a broader meaning . . . as in a sentence like this: "The Ukranian farmers refused to give up their land; as a result, the Soviet Council ordered that these counter-revolutionaries be PURGED from their new vision of society." I mean, if someone were to say "Hitler claimed he wanted to PURGE the nation of undesirables" I assume it would be understood that he was referring to Gypsies and Jews and such like people. In the context of that sentence, no one would say, "No, Hitler must have meant "members of his political party". In ordinary discourse--and the acceptable use of the very flexible English language--the term "purge" means simply that--to root out, extirpate, get rid of. The "purges of Russian society" that Lenin enacted in 1918 didn't refer to anyone belonging to his own political party; rather, he rounded up writers, academics and intellectuals precisely for the reason that they didn't belong to his party--and were therefore a threat. He had them shot, exiled [and later drafted plans for concentration camps that later came into existence as what we know today as 'gulags'.]
It's not my interpretation. That's what people are talking about when they talk about the Soviet purges. It may not be your interpretation, but in serious history books that's what it means. The Ukraine thing has nothing to do with a purge and no respected author refers to it as a purge. The purges, in this context, according to the hsitory books, were exactly what I said, not just any killing. Of course you can use call that purges, but it's not a very smart thing to do when there's another important specific and famous incident known as the purges, which were actual purges beyond much subjective interpretation. I mean, you can also call a pineaple an avocado if you want.
But, please, before thinking me a bad person, or a rabble rouser, or a sociopath, please read the link to Churchill's article . . . and then go back and re-read my first post on this subject where I denounce people who persecuted German Jews for what Russian Jews did. Etc. I hope you'll have a better understanding of my position, when you see it unclouded by the emotion that naturally arises from touchy subjects like these.
See, I don't think you're a bad person or anything like that and I don't have a problem with your opinions, or anyone else's, of the Bolsheviks or the Soviet Union. I don't really care. What I care about is people throwing fake data around and making controversial claims that are simply not true nor backed by any new or old source (like your 90% or your millions purged before Stalin). I also have a big problem when people start calling people names because they're disagreeing, as you did when you called me a revisionist, when as I showes, I'm the opposite of that in this discussion, I'm defending mainstream, academic history. Other than that, I'm fine, you can have any opinion you want, it's fine with me and I'm sure you're a nice person. It's not about any of that anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Drooperdoo on Jul 23, 2005 10:51:18 GMT -5
Springa, Firstly I never called you a revisionist. I wasn't referring to you personally when I complained about how politics slips into history departments. So I apologize if you misunderstood me.
As to saying I "made up" the 90% figure that doesn't appear in the Churchill article, you're right. But you wrong me when you say I made the statement "based on no sources new or old". In fact, I made the statement based on The Last Days of the Romanovs by Robert Wilton, T. Butterworth--published in London, 1920. The book never states 90%. That was my figure. Here are the actual numbers, though, as quoted from pages 184-185, "Out of 556 functionaries of the Bolshevik State in 1919: 457 were Jews, the rest being composed of 17 Russians, 2 Ukrainians, 11 Armenians, 35 Letts, 15 Germans, 1 Hungarian, 10 Georgians, 3 Poles, 3 Finns, 1 Karaim."
In my initial post, I said 90% because it was easier to do that then to go into the long, long, LONG list provided by Wilton and others.
Interestingly, from US archives this telegram exists from Captain Montgomery Schuyler in Vladivostok on July 5, 1918 to U.S. consul Caldwell. He's reporting on the make-up of the presiding Soviet government: "There were 384 `commissars' including 2 negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians, AND MORE THAN 300 JEWS. Of the latter number, 264 had come to Russia from the United States since the downfall of the Imperial Government."
So . . . well, you challenged me for sources and there they are. They stand with the article by Winston Churchill. So please: Do your darnedest to discredit them. It's now my turn to challenge you. Prove that these sources are false, or rife with errors--or apologize, admitting that history is not as cut and dry as we are led to believe in school.
P.S.--Some other telegrams from US archives regarding the Bolshevik coup in Russia:
State Department document 861.00/1757 sent May 2, 1918 by U.S. consul general in Moscow, Summers: "Jews prominant in local Soviet government, anti-Jewish feeling growing among population...."
State Department document 861.00/2205: "Fifty percent of Soviet government in each town consists of Jews of the worst type."
From the Headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces, Siberia on March 1, 1919, comes this telegram from Omsk: "It is probably unwise to say this loudly in the United States but the Bolshevik movement is and has been since it's beginning guided and controlled by Russian Jews of the greasiest type."
David R. Francis, United States ambassador in Russia, warned in a January 1918 dispatch to Washington: "The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution." Likewise, the Netherlands' ambassador in Russia, Oudendyke, confirmed this: "Unless Bolshevism is nipped in the bud immediately, it is bound to spread in one form or another over Europe and the whole world as it is organized and worked by Jews who have no nationality, and whose one object is to destroy for their own ends the existing order of things."
**Conclusion** I find most of these characterizations disturbing and offensive. But they are, sadly, real--and they reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people examining Bolshevism as it happened. Latterly, there's been a movement to hide these ugly truths, to bury them--but that doesn't change reality, and it doesn't change the actual history of the period and its players.
|
|