Useful Idiots, Again

For those of you who don't have the time or the inclination to read Mona Charen's excellent book, Useful Idiots, yes, the book I recommended to you in this space a couple of weeks ago, you can take the short course: read Arnold Beichman's succinct essay on the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Josef Vissarionovich Stalin.

Mr. Beichman covers those useful idiots who could not or would not see the enormity of the famine deliberately caused in the Soviet Union in 1932-1933, somewhere around 5,000,000 lives. Walter Duranty reported it falsely to his useful idiot bosses at the New York Times and they repeated it to the world, earning a Pulitzer Prize therefore which they have never returned.

Beichman wonders about those visitors from the West, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Bloomsbury patrician Fabians, Bernard Shaw, too, and FDR's Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph P. Davies, among others, who could not pierce the mask of the Soviet purge trials, could not comprehend the evil they were staring at. A paradox, he says, these educated and otherwise intelligent people not catching on, not seeing the purge trials for what they were, monstrous blood baths....more

Harvest Of Despair (Ukranian Famine) This film documents the Ukrainian terror famine of 1932--33, which caused the deaths of 7,000,000 people. Using interviews with survivors and scholars to supplement rare photographic evidence, it established that the terror famine was deliberately created by the Soviet Government as part of Stalin's decades-long effort to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry, who resisted the forced collectivization of their lands. Since its original release, it has received many international awards (including an Academy Award nomination) and has been featured on William F. Buckley's Firing Line program on the PBS television network. A powerful film, Harvest of Despair provides rare insight into one of this century's least-known but most vicious genocides. B&W, 55 minutes.

Famine Film: "Harvest of Despair" by Leonard Klady

Produced by the Ukrainian Famine Research Committee (since renamed the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center -- Webmaster InfoUkes) with assistance from the National Film Board and a variety of private and public funding sources, the movie screened at the Planetarium Auditorium of the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature on October 26 and 27, 1984. It is a real eye-opener.

However, the production's greatest asset remains the eloquent and emotional testimony of survivors and first-hand witnesses to the horrors. Memories of those who saw relatives and friends slowly succumb to disease and malnutrition fill one with the most terrifying images. It is clear from the tone of these people's recollections that their lives were forever changed by the experience.

HE ALSO INTERVIEWED more than a hundred living survivors of the famine who live in Montreal. In the vast majority of cases, these people refused to be filmed or would only consent on the understanding the material would not be seen until after their deaths. Luhovy says their fear of reprisals is unshakeable.

"Of course, all of us who participated in the film would hope it has some small effect on getting the famine official recognition by Soviet authorities,' Luhovy notes. "But most important is that people not forget what occurred. The film was not made out of anger, it was made to show the senselessness of the action. We must always remember this and ensure such incidents never happen again."

To: f.Christian

Dakmar...

I took a few minutes to decipher that post, and I must say I agree with a lot of what you said.

fC...

These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!

Dakmar...

Where you and I diverge is on the Evolution/Communism thing. You seem to view Darwin and evolution as the beginning of the end for enlighted, moral civilization, while I think Marx, class struggle, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" are the true dangers.

God bless you, I think we both have a common enemy in the BRAVE-NWO.

452 posted on 9/7/02 8:54 PM Pacific by Dakmar

It's absurd to compare Darwin, a scientist who published some papers and books, the general conclusions of which helped humans understand biology much better, with Stalin, a mass murderer. Come on!

No it's not. Even Marx wouldn't think so.

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