It's a Disgrace This Book Had to Be Written-Does Stalin deserve the opprobrium visited on Hitler?

TCS ^ | 02/26/2004 | SIDNEY GOLDBERG

[SJackson]

Its a disgrace that this book had to be written. A disgrace because so many Americans -- and so many others around the world -- still cling to the notion that Stalin doesn't deserve the opprobrium that has been visited on Hitler. This needs correction, even though it's decades after the fact.

The book, "In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage" (Encounter Books, San Francisco) is by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, who have written extensively on the crimes of Stalin -- indeed the whole Soviet regime from start to finish -- and on the slavish devotion of American communists to Stalin & Co.

I used to have a thirty-second quiz to determine someone's political positioning: "Who was better, Batista or Castro?" "Who was better, Mao or Chiang?" If the person answered that Castro and Mao were better, I would know it would be a long, hard night before an inch of political education could be accomplished. Often the rationale was "Well, at least Castro and Mao weren't corrupt" -- as if corruption were the worst evil of the century, and ignoring the fact that Mao was corrupt on a scale magnitudes beyond anything Chiang ever dreamt of or that to this day Castro lives like a potentate on the backs of his people.

Haynes and Klehr make the point that Germany underwent denazification after World War II, a lustration that went down to the lowest party levels, making it virtually impossible for a Nazi party member to hold office in the new Germany, so that the relatively unblemished mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, became Chancellor.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, on the other hand, did not result in a decommunisation. There was no equivalent of the Nuremberg trials, and indeed most high offices to this day are occupied by Communists or former Communists, tens of thousands of them with blood on their hands. The supreme insult is that the president of this vast political enterprise is Vladimir Putin, a former high-ranking Communist in the Soviet Secret Police. The equivalent of this would have been the inheritance of the government of Nazi Germany after World War II by the Nazi gauleiter of Poland.

Just last year, when Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to run for governor of California, some of his liberal detractors referred to the fact that his father was a member of the Nazi Party in Austria. If this was in any way relevant to Schwarzenegger's candidacy, then Hitler's Nuremberg laws were relevant -- that if your parent was Jewish, you inherited the evil of Jewry. What a victory for Hitler's theories of blood guilt!

But can you imagine the brouhaha if it had been pointed out at the time that Carl Bernstein had no standing to expose the Watergate scandal because his parents were Communists (and indeed he was raised to despise Nixon)? Of course it would have been irrelevant, at least in a legal sense, but not as irrelevant as the politics of Schwarzenegger's father, a man who made do in a country where you had to be bold, often heroic, not to join the Nazis.

What Haynes and Klehr relentlessly expose is the unwavering dedication of American Communists to a regime that slaughtered more innocent civilians than Hitler did, counting up the Jews, Poles, Gypies, and the other poor souls that fell victim to Hitler's dementia. Robert Conquest, the historian who chronicled what took place in the Soviet abattoir, says that 20 million were slaughtered.

But "In Denial" is mostly about the American Communists' reaction to these events. The book is exhaustively researched, so that there are virtually no crumbs of doubt left for die-hard Stalinist defenders to nibble on -- except in academia, where so many professors refuse to believe the facts, even now when they can be etched in stone. The professoriat, in so many universities, still believe that McCarthyism was a greater evil than Soviet communism.

But Haynes and Klehr don't let them get away with anything, from the lingering lunatic refusal to accept the guilt of Alger Hiss and Julius Rosenberg, to the seemingly small deceptions, such as the Communist claim that the U.S. Army tagged veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, after the Spanish Civil War, as "premature anti-Fascists" and stamped "PA" on their army documents so that they, in effect, could be watched and harassed throughout their army careers. Exhaustive research by the two authors proves, well beyond any reasonable doubt, the army never did this and knew nothing about it, and that this label was concocted entirely by the Communists. (It was cooked up during the confusing times of the Nazi-Soviet pact, during which the Communists had to stop opposing Hitler -- and Franco -- and fall in line with the new parade, opposing FDR and Churchill.)

There are very few books on Americans who long for Hitler, mainly because there never was a significant segment of Nazis in America, but unfortunately there is a significant number of Americans who still think that Joe Stalin was an idealistic reformer, and some of these Americans are in control of history departments of important universities -- and virtually no books are available that document and explain this peculiar situation. "In Denial" fills this gap.

Sidney Goldberg is a frequent TCS contributor. He last wrote for TCS about art criticism.

[1066AD]

Good news, better late than never. For the global view see The Black Book of Communism, published in US by Harvard University Press.

[Paleo Conservative]

Ten times over just to catch up.

[LjubivojeRadosavljevic]

["many Americans...cling to the notion that Stalin doesn't deserve the opprobrium that has been visited on Hitler."]

That's (mainly) because the Americans and the Bolskeviks fought a common enemy - Hitler's regime. Just look at the photo of the Yalta conference. That basically sums up the alliance (at that time).

[Gothmog]

Yep, great book, I'm most of the way through it. It's better than Coulter's "Treason" because she based a lot of her book on their research.

[skinkinthegrass]

It's a Disgrace This Book Had to Be Written-Does Stalin deserve the opprobrium visited on Hitler?...For the global view see The Black Book of Communism, published in US by Harvard University Press.

The main question...Yes, He (and the country) does...His victims (and History) demand it.....and I've heard of the book, Thx...for reminder.

[Steely Glint]

You should also read Haynes' and Klehr's Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (1999). It describes in detail just how severely the American left committed treason to help the Communists.

[MEG33]

True,we were allies against Hitler.The communist USSR did not fall like Hitler's Germany where we had access to records and personal accounts of many victims.

We have a long way to go to expose Stalin's evil.People have glossed over Stalin's crimes since before WW2(remember the Duranty,NYT Pulitzer controversy?).The press and government were all peppered with communists or useful idiots.

It is no surprise that today's left wing glitterati gather to memorialize the execution of the Rosenbergs,those dear misunderstood communists who gave atomic secrets to the USSR.Their letters from prison were read by John Kerry's dear friend Peter Yarrow,of Peter Paul and Mary at the gathering
Peter campaigned in Iowa with Kerry recently.

[grellis]

Very weird timing. Just last night Alan Colmes said something on Hannity & Colmes (I do not remember what) which got my husband and me discussing how most Americans simply do not realize or care to know about just how deadly and brutal Stalin and the Communist regime were. Three of my great uncles did not make it out of Soviet work camps alive. My grandfather did and returned to Germany just in time to flee the Nazis. If it were not for the personal connection to this history, I myself would probably not fully comprehend Soviet brutality. Apart from being taught by teachers "Communism is bad--trust us" I do not remember ever studying Communism in depth at school--and that was in the 1980s.

[gcruse]

Yep, great book, I'm most of the way through it. It's better than Coulter's "Treason" because she based a lot of her book on their research.

I searched this article in vain for a crucial connection.  Is it in the book?

But "In Denial" is mostly about the American Communists' reaction to these events.

Yes, indeed, but who gives a damn? American communists wouldn't have been communists if they weren't ready to overlook anything the Soviets did.  What kind of 'news' is that?  Where is the connection to American liberalism?  Does the book connect the dots, or is a magnificent grasp of the obvious that ends without  pinning the tail on the present-day donkeys, rather some  gaggle of pizza-faced losers skurrying between cold rooms with dead ideas?

[MEG33]

#8 See my last paragraph.In your nightmares..try to think of a Kerry cabinet,advisors.

[dfwgator]

And the thing that almost noone ever mentions is that the Soviet Union is equally culpable with Nazi Germany for starting WW II when they signed the Non-Agression Pact and thus participated in the invasion of Poland. In the immortal words of General Anders, "With the Nazis we lose our lives, with the Soviets we lose our souls."

[DumpsterDiver]

ping

[AMDG&BVMH]

Hopefully, the truth will out over time. (I hope I live to see the British records about Hess declassified, for example. It's a matter of curiosity. Why can't we know after all this time?? What is it going to hurt??)

We may see more about the Communist influence within Nazism itself. Gestapo Mueller and Borman were likely feeding information right from Hitler's inner circle to the Soviets (via a cell in Switzerland), which helped the Soviets on the Eastern Front. Also, they were right in there with the policies of brutality, which implies that Communists helped the Nazis brutalize and kill. Why Communists would work for Hitler? To help pave the way for the Russian Army to march into Berlin (which it did) and impose Communism in Germany (which they did in the East zones). (See "Hitler's Traitor" by Louis Katzen; I don't agree with everyting he concludes, but a lot of it makes sense and helps connect some dots. If there are other references of a Nazi/Communist influence, pro or con, let me know).

[gcruse]

And the thing that almost noone ever mentions is that the Soviet Union is equally culpable with Nazi Germany for starting WW II when they signed the Non-Agression Pact

Equally shied from is the notion that, had the French not been carrying such a load of historical hatred against Germany at Versailles, the scenario for WWII would never have been set.

[AMDG&BVMH]

"had the French not been carrying such a load of historical hatred against Germany at Versailles, the scenario for WWII would never have been set."

The Russians and French were at it again to help kick off WWI. The Czar thought he had to mobilize, because if he waited, his forces would be too weak. The Germans declared that mobilization on their Eastern front would be an act of war. The French, allies of Russia, had to give assurances to the Russians that their actions would be supported. In a convoluted way, with the contrivance of the French ambassador in Russia, they did, for the Czar would not have mobilized without assurances from his ally. And so the world stumbled into a major war!! There is enough blame to go around, but in my reading of "The Lions of August," the start of the war was the mobilization of the Russian forces, with the tacit approval of France. Germany's major problem was not having a strategic plan to fight in the west without marching through Belgium, which despite all desires and calculations, brought England into the war against Germany. So the military planners let the political leaders down, too. Enough blame to go around . . .

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - DEMOCIDE

[gcruse]

Thanks for that. Learn something new everytime I learn something new.

[Cronos]

Whatever. World Wars One and Two had to happen or we wouldn't have had the modern world. We'd have had Medieval Empires and Kingdoms in Austria-Hungary, Germany, Spain, Russia, Turkey, England, etc. ruling the world. There would have been no technological revolution, just serfdom. America changed the world because decadent Europe committed suicide, leaving America to show the world the way forward.

[Just mythoughts]

If there had been no STALIN, there would have been no HITLER. No communists, NO NAZIS!

They were of the same mind. EVIL!