terça-feira, 25 de agosto de 2015

Who Controls the Past Controls the Future: Why Does West Hate Stalin?





Who Controls the Past Controls the Future: Why Does West Hate Stalin?


Ekaterina Blinova

On August 23 Europe marked a so-called "European Day of Remembrance for Victims
of Stalinism and Nazism" coinciding with the date of the signing of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; one of the purposes of this "day of remembrance" is to
equate Stalin with Hitler, the USSR with Nazi Germany, Professor Grover Carr
Furr told Sputnik.

By attacking and stigmatizing the Soviet past the US and its NATO allies are
targeting today's Russia and its leadership that is unwilling to bow before the
West; anyway, the USSR never did anything remotely comparable to what major
Western countries did in the last century — the US and NATO have been by far the
most aggressive and murderous power in the world since WW2, US expert in Soviet
history Professor Grover Carr Furr of Montclair State University told Sputnik.

Illogical as it may seem, despite the fact that the USSR collapsed decades ago
the Western propaganda machine continues to vilify Soviet Russia; first
British-American historian Robert Conquest and later American scholar Timothy
Snyder have contributed a lot to the anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda
campaign.

"Why [there is] so much anti-Stalin and anti-communism? Anti-communism because
communism is the antithesis to capitalism. And anti-Stalin because the Stalin
period in the USSR was the period when the world Communist movement did so much
that was good. Also, anti-Stalinism and anticommunism because of the huge
atrocities of capitalism and imperialism in the 20th century, which continue
today," Professor Furr emphasized.

Cold War: Western Historians on Intelligence Service

The professor pointed out that historian Robert Conquest (the author of "The
Great Terror: Stalin's Purges of the 1930s" who passed away on August 3, 2015)
had been working for the British Information Research Department (IRD) since its
establishment and up to 1956. The IRD, originally called the Communist
Information Bureau, was founded in 1947, when the Cold War era began.

"[The IRD's'] main task was to combat Communist influence throughout the world
by planting stories among politicians, journalists and others in a position to
influence public opinion," Professor Furr explained.

Conquest's work was to contribute to the so-called "black history" of the Soviet
Union, the professor noted, "in other words, fake stories put out as fact and
distributed among journalists and others able to influence public opinion."

"His book The Great Terror, a basic anti-communist text on the subject of the
power struggle that took place in the Soviet Union in 1937, was in fact a
recompilation of text he had written when working for the secret services. The
book was finished and published with the help of the IRD. A third of the
publication run was bought by the Praeger Press, normally associated with the
publication of literature originating from CIA sources," Professor Furr pointed
out.

The professor remarked that to our days Conquest remains one of the most
important sources of material on the Soviet Union for anti-communist and
Russophobic historians.

The propagandist activity, masquerading as scholarship, was aimed against the
USSR and coordinated by US/British intelligence.

Furr noted that Conquest periodically met with heavy criticism from prominent
Western scholars, which blasted him for "consciously falsifying information"
about the Soviet Union. In fact Conquest just used any source that was hostile
to Stalin and the USSR, turning a blind eye to the fact whether it was reliable
or not.

Needless to say that British-American historian Robert Conquest has lots of
"followers," especially today, when Western-Russian relations have deteriorated
tremendously. The blatant falsification of history used as a traditional Cold
War tool has caught a second wind.

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present
controls the past," as George Orwell wrote in his famous book "1984."

Unsurprisingly though, the Western historical discourse is currently flooded
with politicized myths about the USSR and Joseph Stalin.

One of those who contribute a lot to the blackening of Soviet Russia is Timothy
Snyder, the Housum Professor of History at Yale and author of Bloodlands. Like
Conquest, he is a celebrated Western author praised by both American right-wing
and liberal sources.

While attacking Stalin, Snyder is trying to convince his readers that Hitler was
no worse but in some sense "less evil" than the Soviet leader. Snyder goes even
so far as to suggest that "in order to carry out the murder of the Jews [the
Holocaust],… Adolf Hitler depended on Joseph Stalin [and his methods]," as
Professor David A. Bell remarked in his recent review of Snyder's "Black Earth"
for the National Interest.

Remarkably, Snyder is largely following in the footsteps of Conquest — his
narrative is based on controversial sources, rumors, semi-truths always hostile
to the USSR, as Professor Furr exposed in his book "Blood Lies: The Evidence
that Every Accusation Against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy
Snyder's Bloodlands Is False."

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Truth and Lies

Untold Story of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Why USSR Inked Non-Aggression Treaty
With Hitler
The story of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact narrated by Snyder and other
anti-communist historians is also full of incorrect assumptions.

"They say that in the treaty 'the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agreed to divide
astern Europe between themselves.' This is false. The treaty, in a secret
clause, marked all of Eastern Poland as the 'Soviet sphere of influence.' This
meant that when the German army defeated the Polish army, (a) the German army
would have to withdraw from Eastern Poland, remaining hundreds of miles away
from the pre-1939 Soviet border; (b) Poland would remain in existence, and
hopefully be willing to ally with the USSR against Hitler," Professor Furr
stressed.

Furr pointed out that the USSR had been trying hard to get Poland, the UK and
France to agree to "collective security," that would oblige each country to
declare war on Germany if Hitler attacked Poland. Alas, Warsaw and London
refused to conclude any such treaty.

"The 'Munich Accords' of October 1938, where the UK and France had given Hitler
a large part of Czechoslovakia (later they also gave Hitler all the Czech gold
reserves too) had proven that the capitalists wanted Hitler to attack the USSR.
The anti-communist and anti-Semitic Polish government also snatched a piece of
Czechoslovakia at this time," Grover Furr emphasized.

In September 1939 the German army occupied Poland and the Polish government fled
the country to Romania. When there is no government, there is no state.

"Hitler's men told the Soviets they were ready to permit a pro-Nazi,
anti-communist Ukrainian state in the former Eastern Poland. So the Soviets had
no choice but to occupy Eastern Poland. 'Eastern Poland' was not really Polish
anyway. It had been seized by force from Soviet Russia by imperialists in 1921.
Most of the population was Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Jewish," the professor
underscored.

Professor Furr stressed that the significance of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is
enormous: it helped to save the USSR, and therefore all Europe, from Hitler's
domination:

"If the German army had been able to start their attack 300 miles closer [to the
Soviet border] the Nazi hordes would have taken Moscow. If Hitler had conquered
the USSR he would have had the immense material and human resources of this
gigantic country to turn against England. Hitler had already conquered almost
all of Europe," he emphasized.

So why do Snyder and his associates refuse to admit it?

By Attacking USSR West Targeting Today's Russia


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Professor Furr elaborates that mainstream western "experts" are not interested
in finding out the truth.

"Conquest was, and Snyder is, a propagandist. I call their work "propaganda with
footnotes." The footnotes and scholarly apparatus are necessary to fool the
media and those intellectuals who will help to propagate their anti-Stalin and
anti-communist lies," he told Sputnik.

"Snyder's aim — and it is not only he, by a long shot, there are many others —
is to equate Stalin with Hitler, the USSR with Nazi Germany, and communism with
Nazism. That is also the purpose of this "day of remembrance" of August 23, and
the position taken by the Polish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, and other far-right
governments," Furr underscored.

"I try to point out at the end of "Blood Lies: The Evidence that Every
Accusation Against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder's
Bloodlands Is False," with some help from Prof. Domenico Losurdo, that it is
accurate to compare Churchill with Hitler, or Daladier, or Chamberlain, but not
Stalin. The USSR was as different from Nazism as could be, while Hitler and the
Nazis were quite popular with Western politicians," he added.


President Ronald Reagan meets in the White House Oval Office with conservative
leaders of Washington's national defense establishment. (File)

But why is Washington so anti-Russian?

The professor explained that unlike Gorbachev or Yeltsin, President Putin does
not bow before Washington and NATO, adding that the US' capitalist competition
will inevitably lead to imperialist competition and war.

"In my experience — limited, I admit — there is a lot of naivete about US
foreign police. The USA has been by far the most aggressive and murderous power
in the world since WW2, and it continues to be. Military bases in well over 100
countries, the largest military machine in the world by far. We should not be
naive. No country builds such a military without intent to use it. So they are
preparing for the next war," Professor Furr told Sputnik.

"My point is this: the USSR and world communist movement never did anything
remotely comparable to what the capitalists and imperialists did in the last
century. And this is unacceptable [for capitalists]. They must show communism
and Stalin to be worse than, not better than, what the capitalists and
imperialists were doing. Lying is the only way," Professor Grover Furr
concluded.

In
Sputnik
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150825/1026165590/why-does-west-hate-stalin.html
25/8/2015

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