swampman posted:

Panopticon posted:
i don't trust ezhov's confession.
Oh really, tell us why please?

because we know that stalin approved of torture and other confessions were extracted through torture, and therefore not reliable

swampman posted:

Panopticon posted:
swampman posted:
Panopticon posted:
i don't trust ezhov's confession.
Oh really, tell us why please?
because we know that stalin approved of torture and other confessions were extracted through torture, and therefore not reliable
We know that Stalin "approved of torture"? Can you substantiate that? Can you show any evidence that Ezhov was tortured? Even if they were, can you show any evidence that their testimony was false?

footnote #4 in getty's excesses

Panopticon posted:

footnote #4 in getty's excesses

What does that footnote point to? I'd like to see what Furr has to say about the source.

swampman posted:

The amazing thing is that a lot of the information we have about the crimes that were committed in the Ezhovshchina come from the many confessions of the conspirators to Beria's men. By that I mean, a lot of the information YOU have comes from these confessions. So if the confessions to the NKVD are suspect, have you looked to determine how many of your accusations are based on these suspect confessions?

which citations are you referring to? some of them, like stalin approving increases in the limits on executions, are from stalin's own hand, such as footnote #74 in getty's excesses

Panopticon posted:

this seems to be the 1939 directive
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/01/10.htm

So Stalin "approved of torture" as you say, "as an exception and, in addition, only in relation to blatant enemies of the people who, taking advantage of the humane method of interrogation, stubbornly refuse to give up their co-conspirators; who refuse to confess for months; and who strive to slow down the discovery of conspirators who are still at large; and so continue their struggle against Soviet power even from prison." That doesn't prove that Ezhov was tortured or that their confession or any particular part of it was false.

Reading ‘the Last word’ it is impossible not to notice that Ezhov said nothing about the essence of the accusations leveled against him. He rejected them all, but spoke mainly about his services in exposing "enemies and spies of various types and intelligence services" while stating at the same time he had "such crimes for which I could be shot", promising to discuss them, but admitted guilt only in that he "did not purge enough" enemies. (53)

Sounds like they were really tortured into submission there pal

Panopticon posted:

it causes me to doubt any confessions extracted within the soviet system, and therefore i trust in other evidence of stalin's culpability over ezhov's confession (such as stalin's approval of increased limits on executions)

Do you doubt Dennis Hastert's confession since torture is common practice in America?

Panopticon posted:

i've never looked into it. if that's the only evidence against him, then i'd be willing to accept arguments that it was a false confession since i know false confessions are extracted from people in america.

The very next sentence from Briukhanov & Shoshkov is

Ezhov denied his participation in a secret organization directed against the Party and the government, saying that, on the contrary, he had taken all measures to expose the conspirators who had murdered S.M. Kirov.

Which means that they were not even convicted on the basis of their own confession, but on the basis of something else, something you might not be familiar with: "evidence".

swampman posted:

Panopticon posted:

stalin clearly understood what ezhov was doing and supported it. the execution numbers were derived from a request stalin put out in a july telegram (getty cites "Ob antisovetskikh elementakh", Poliburo resolution of 2 July 1937, Trud, 4 June 1992), and the execution limits were discussed at the october central committee plenum (getty cites Plenum TsK VKP(b) 11-12 oktiabria 1937, g., stenogramma, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 625, 11. 1-10, 38, 49, 55, 63, 70)

The text of that exact resolution is in the above chapter under the section called "The Ezhovshchina, Again." You can see that Furr even discusses Getty's citation of this resolution. Stalin expected execution and exile for a limited number of the "most hostile" of the kulaks and was responding to a number of known conspiracies against the Soviet government. So I'm not sure what your point is. Furr also writes "On the contrary, it is clear now that Stalin and the Politburo did not know that Ezhov was engaging in these massive executions of innocent people. We discuss this important matter in much more detail in Chapter Six of the present book." so I am excited to get through the next 100 pages, to get you more of the evidence to help you to molt your insect casing of anticommunist lies.

I suppose your whole flareup is my own problem for not transcribing fast enough, knowing that you eagerly consume and consider every word of Furr I bring you. Talk to you later Eater

Stalin had brought to life his theory that the enemy could be unmasked only by interrogation. (107)

Where did this “theory” come from? Snyder has no documentation for this statement, not even false “documentation.” There is no evidence that Stalin had any such “theory.” This is yet another falsehood.

Snyder Reads Stalin’s Mood

It is evidently important to Snyder’s project that Stalin be personally responsible for the mass murder of the Ezhovshchina. The problem is that all the evidence now available points in the opposite direction. Presumably this is why Snyder, like other ideologically-motivated writers, repeatedly invents his "facts."

For example, Snyder claims that Stalin was made happier, or something like that, by all the mass murders:

Yet the conversion of columns of peasants into columns of figures seemed to lift Stalin's mood... (107)

Snyder has fabricated this weird factoid. How can Snyder know "Stalin's mood" anyway? Its purpose, evidently, is to portray Stalin as some kind of bloodthirsty monster. Once again, there is no evidence to support it. Historians have no business engaging in this cheap psychologizing, propaganda disguised as history.

The Ezhovshchina as "Stalin's policy"

At this point in Chapter 4 Snyder inserts the quotation with which we open our discussion of the Ezhovshchina (see the following chapter).

...and the course of the Great Terror certainly confirmed Stalin's position of power. Having called a halt to the mass operations in November 1938, Stalin once again replaced his NKVD chief. Lavrenty Beria succeeded Yezhov, who was later executed. The same fate awaited many of the highest officers of the NKVD, blamed for the supposed excesses, which were in fact the substance of Stalin's policy. (107-8)

For ideologically anticommunist researchers it is important that these mass murders be Stalin's plan and intention. But this is false. When Stalin acted he did so on the basis of reports sent to him through Ezhov. According to V.N. Khaustov, a very anti-Stalin researcher and one of the compilers of several of these invaluable document collections, these reports were falsified. (Cyrillic) Translated:

And the most frightening thing was that Stalin made his decisions on the basis of confessions that were the result of the inventions of certain employees of the organs of state security. Stalin's reactions attest to the fact that he took these confessions completely seriously.
Lubianka Golgofa p. 6. Now online at http://www.k2x2.info/politika/lubjanka_sovetskaja_yelita_na_stalinskoi_golgofe_1937_1938/p4.php

Snyder: Stalin Didn't Lose, Therefore He Was Always In Control

Snyder then says:

Because Stalin had been able to replace Yagoda with Yezhov, and then Yezhov with Beria, he showed himself to be at the top of the security apparatus. Because he was able to use the NKVD against the party, but also the party against the NKVD, he showed himself to be the unchallengeable leader of the Soviet Union. Soviet socialism had become a tyranny where the tyrant's power was demonstrated by the mastery of the politics of his own court. (107-8)

Source (n. 43 p. 474):

* "Khlevniuk, "Party and NKVD," 23, 28;"
* Binner, "Massenmord," 591-593.

The false logic in this paragraph of Snyder's is worth examining also because it is used by other anticommunist researchers as well. Snyder commits the logical fallacy of "post hoc ergo propter hoc." Because Iagoda and Ezhov both conspired to overthrow Stalin but both failed, Snyder concludes that Stalin was always in control.

Imagine applying this to football games: the team that won was always going to win, and the fact that they won proved that they were in control of the outcome the whole time! "Logic" like this is evidently intended to "absolve" anticommunist researchers of the normal scholarly trouble of having to find evidence to support their assumptions.

These are puzzling statements that require examination. Of course it has to be true that Stalin ended up "at the top of the security apparatus" after Ezhov's removal. But this does not address the main question here, which is: did Ezhov violate the Politburo's - "Stalin's" - orders in pursuing these mass executions of innocent persons, or not? And when did Stalin "use the party against the NKVD"?

Evidently Snyder is trying to imply that Stalin planned everything that Ezhov did because Stalin had succeeded in removing Ezhov. Of course the latter does not imply the former at all. If Stalin did not know about Ezhov's criminal mass murders and then found out about them, he would have wanted to remove him. From the evidence we have this appears to be what happened.

Once again Snyder appears to be trying to insinuate something that he cannot prove. Naturally Stalin did not have any "court." Nor was he a "tyrant" - whatever that means - or a dictator, one "whose word is law." Stalin had been openly challenged at the June 1937 Central Committee Plenum, and was to be decisively defeated in October 1937 in his desire to have competitive elections to the Soviets as stipulated by the new constitution. See Grover Furr, "Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform. Part One." Cultural Logic 2005, paragraphs 112 ff., and the sources cited there. At http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html

Turning for clarification to the sources Snyder cites here, we find that Khlevniuk, "Party and NKVD," 23, 28 contains no evidence to support any of the claims in this paragraph. It merely summarizes in very general terms the situation after Ezhov's resignation in late 1938.

Binner, "Massenmord" - actually Binner and Junge, and titled "Wie der Terror 'Gross' Wurde: Massenmord under Lagerhaft nach Befehl 00447" - also summarizes the events of September to November, 1938. While insinuating their conviction that Stalin was in control of what Ezhov was doing - this assumption is common to all anticommunist researchers - neither Binner and Junge nor any of the other anticommunist researchers have any evidence to support their conviction.

This is pure ideology, common to most if not all anticommunist writers. They "want" evidence that Stalin was "in charge" of Ezhov's mass murders. Unfortunately, all the evidence points in the opposite direction so they can just assert that Stalin was "really" in charge.

Binner and Junge do note that as early as 1993 Boris Starkov claimed that Ezhov "had not informed Stalin of his actions." Although Binner and Junge disagree with this statement of Starkov's they have no evidence to support their disagreement. It should not surprise us that Snyder fails to mention this. But we know now that Starkov was correct. In fact he did not go nearly far enough. We now have the evidence that Ezhov's mass murders were not authorized at all, and were part of Ezhov's conspiracy to overthrow the government and Party leadership. Starkov's statement is in his essay "Narkom Ezhov", in J. Arch Getty and Roberta T. Manning, eds., Stalinist Terror. New Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 38.

Snyder: Noting A Person's Nationality Is "Not So Very Different From" Nazism

Germany's Nuremberg laws of 1935 excluded Jews from political participation in the German state and defined Jewishness according to descent. German officials were indeed using the records of synagogues to establish whose grandparents were Jews. Yet in the Soviet Union the situation was not so very different. The Soviet internal passports had a national category, so that every Soviet Jew, every Soviet Pole, and indeed every Soviet citizen had an officially recorded nationality. In principle Soviet citizens were allowed to choose their own nationality, but in practice this was not always so. In April 1938 the NKVD required that in certain cases information about the nationality of parents be entered. By the same order, Poles and other members of diaspora nationalities were expressly forbidden from changing their nationality..." (110)
n. 47 - Hirsch, Empire, 293-294.

This is another dishonest attempt by Snyder to bracket Soviet policy with Nazi racism.

Snyder has certainly not read the NKVD "requirement" he refers to. He does not even give a date for it. His source, Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations. Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Cornell U.P. 2005), 293-4. discusses the fact that both the cancelled 1937 census and the subsequent 1938 census permitted all citizens to "declare their national identities 'according to their conscience and not their birth." Hirsch then cites, though without quoting it, an archival document according to which in April 1938 the NKVD began to require new passports to record the nationality of the holder's parents.

In later pages Hirsch goes on to discuss the struggle between census officials, who wanted to retain self-designation of nationality, and the NKVD, which was concerned about possible loyalty conflicts of persons with foreign roots. Hirsch explicitly disagrees with two other anticommunist researchers (Tony Martin and Eric Weitz) who she believes greatly exaggerate the significance of this NKVD directive.

Hirsch completely rejects any comparison of Soviet and German Nazi policies on nationality because, in fact, they were very different. In a very multinational state such as the USSR nationality was an important component of individual identity. It had nothing to do with Nazi notions of genetic superiority and inferiority.

However, there are some problems with Hirsch's analysis. For one thing, Hirsch interprets the new NKVD policy as indicative of Soviet policy, as she does "terror." She appears ignorant of the fact that in 1937-1938 the NKVD, under Nikolai Ezhov, was out of control.

We have taken the trouble to obtain the text of this document. It has never been reprinted since its first appearance in an obscure Memorial Society newsletter. Now that we have the text of the NKVD directive of April 1938 we can discern a more serious problem with Hirsch's discussion: she misrepresents what the NKVD directive actually says. She states:

The explicit aim {of the "NKVD passport decree of April 1938"} was to ferret out members of "suspect" nations who, the NKVD claimed, were "concealing" their true identities. (275)

The NKVD introduced this decree in April 1938, directing registrars to write the nationality of a passport recipient's parents - and not the self-defined nationality of the passport recipient - in newly-issued passports....If a person's parents belonged to two different nationalities and one "belonged to a foreign state," the registrar was to write the nationality of both parents in the passport. ... Even Poles and Germans who had lived in Russia for generations were designated as people who "belonged to" a foreign state... (294)

Hirsch cites archival documents, so we cannot be certain that she is referring to the April 1938 NKVD passport decree we quote below. But this document is the only one now available. It contains nothing about "suspect" nations and does not mention "foreign states" at all.

Hirsch spreads false information about this NKVD regulation, making it appear much more sinister than its text actually warrants. This is possible only because the document is so hard to locate. Petrov and Roginskii, both of "Memorial Society", refer to it and certainly read it since it is published in a "Memorial Society" publication. Hirsch must have read it too. But her description of it varies widely from the text we have.

Snyder fails to inform his readers that the NKVD order is discussed, and quoted in part, in Petrov and Roginskii, "'Pol'skaia operatsiia' NKVD 1937-1938 gg." Snyder is certainly aware of this fact, as he repeatedly cites this work.

Petrov and Roginskii mention two different NKVD documents of two different dates: "Circular No. 65 of April 2, 1938" and "Explanatory directive of the Department of Citizenship of the NKVD of the USSR No. 1486178 of April 29, 1938." Footnote 18 in Petrov/Roginskii states that the second of these documents was published in the very rare journal "Memorial-Aspekt" in 1994. They give no source at all for the first document.

18 Разъясняющее указание Отдела актов гражданского состояния НКВД СССР No 1486178 от 29 апреля 1938 г. см.: Мемориал-аспект. 1994. No 10.This is confirmed in Ален Блюм, Мартина Меспуле. Бюрократичесиая анархия Статистика и власть при Сталине. Москва: РОССКЯН 2008, п. 223. At http://burokraticheskaya-anarhiya.blogspot.com/2011/10/67.html ; note 52 to Chapter 10 at http://burokraticheskaya-anarhiya.blogspot.com/2011/10/77.html : This is a translation of Alain Blum et Martine Mespoulet. L'anarchie bureaucratique. Statistique et pouvoir sous Staline. Paris, Éditions la Découverte 2003.

Here is the text of this document from the rare Memorial-Aspekt journal (no longer published): The journal Memorial-Aspekt is apparently not held by any American library. I would like to thank my valued colleague Vladimir L. Bobrov of Moscow for obtaining this document for me. (Cyrillic) Translated:

BUREAU OF REGULATIONS
CIVIL STATUS
April 29, 1938
No 1486178

To All chiefs of the OAGS of the NKVD and UNKVD
"Otdel aktov grazhdanskogo sostoiania" - Division of documents of civil status.

Circular NKVD number 65 of April 2, 1938 ... has established a new procedure for indicating nationality at the time of the issuance or exchange of passports, requiring that the nationality of the passport holder be based solely on birth nationality by birth (of the parents).

In this regard, the situation which has existed up to now when nationality of citizens in registering civil documents is recorded as that reported by the registrant - is changing.

In all cases of documentation that nationality should be indicated on the basis of the passports presented at registration.

Where no passport is present, the determination of the nationality of the registrant is to be done by questioning the individual present. Bear in mind that the notation of nationality must be carried out in conformity with actual national origin of the registrant's parent. If the parents were German, Poles, etc., regardless of their place of birth, length of time they have resided in the USSR, or change of citizenship, etc., the registrant must not be recorded as a Russian, a Belorussian, etc.

When the indicated nationality does not correspond to {the registrant's} native language or surname - for example: a registrant's surname is Popandopulo, Mueller, but {the registrant} calls himself Russian, Belorussian, etc., and if at the time of recording it is not possible to establish the actual nationality of the registrant - do not fill out the section on nationality until the individual has presented documentary proof that the registrant belongs to one or another nationality.

Explain to the employees of the ZAGS that failure to present documents about nationality can influence only the recording of nationality, but may not delay the registrant in general, which is guided in such cases by directives of chapter 3 22 of the instruction on recording documents.

Record the nationality of a baby at birth, if the parents are of different nationalities, according to the parents' wishes. In such cases indicate in the section "special remarks" that the baby's nationality has been recorded on the basis of the agreement of the parents, i.e. according to the nationality of the father or the mother. If they do not agree, the matter should be decided by the organs of guardianship (according to article 39 of the Code of Laws of the RSFSR and corresponding articles of the Codes of the union republics). Do not fill in the nationality until a decision has been reached.

Chief of the Bureau of regulations of civil status
Major of state security
Alievskii

A study of this document yields some important results.

* Although they do not admit as much, evidently even Petrov and Roginskii have not seen "NKVD USSR circular No. 65 of April 2, 1938." It is simply referred to at the beginning of the document above.

* The examples cited in the document make it clear that the aim of the new requirement - to determine a citizen's nationality on the basis of his parents' nationality or statement - is to avoid absurdities. The examples given are of persons surnamed "Popandopoulo" and "Müller" who claim that they are Russian by nationality.

* In such cases the directive requires officials to request documentary proof of nationality. It does not give officials the right to determine this themselves.

In the USSR nationality was an important marker of citizenship. Persons of certain nationalities had certain privileges in certain areas of the USSR where that nationality comprised a substantial part of the population. In Soviet institutions an attempt was made to have "affirmative action" - a proportion of citizens of minority nationalities that approximated their percentage of the Soviet population. Failure to do this would run the danger of the domination of all important posts by Russians, Ukrainians, or Jews, who usually did predominate unless affirmative steps were taken to promote persons of minority nationalities.

It is outrageous for Snyder to suggest that official registration of a citizen's nationality was "not so very different" from the Nazi practice of racial stigmatization, removal of civil and legal rights, repression, persecution, imprisonment and murder. Snyder's doing so demonstrates how desperately he strives to bracket Soviet actions with Nazism whatever the cost to the truth.

Snyder sums up his treatment of the Ezhovshchina as follows:

The Soviet Union benefited from the public violence in Nazi Germany. In this atmosphere, supporters of the Popular Front counted on the Soviet Union to protect Europe from the descent into ethnic violence. Yet the Soviet Union had just engaged in a campaign of ethnic murder on a far larger scale. It is probably fair to say that no one beyond the Soviet Union had any notion of this. A week after Kristallnacht, the Great Terror was brought to an end, after some 247,157 Soviet citizens had been shot in the national operations. As of the end of 1938, the USSR had killed about a thousand times more people on ethnic grounds than had Nazi Germany. The Soviets had, for that matter, killed far more Jews to that point than had the Nazis. The Jews were targeted in no national action, but they still died in the thousands in the Great Terror - and for that matter during the famine in Soviet Ukraine. They died not because they were Jews, but simply because they were citizens of the most murderous regime of the day. (111)

This is an important paragraph, in that it combines one truthful fact - the number of people killed in the Ezhovshchina - with a fallacious interpretation of that fact. The phrases "the Soviet Union had just engaged", "the USSR had killed", "the Soviet had...killed", and "the most murderous regime" are falsifications, in that they express the assumption that these killings were the policy of the Soviet government and the Politburo headed by Stalin.

It is a substitute for understanding what was going on. The 1932-1933 famine was not deliberate, so the USSR didn't "kill" anybody in it. Nor did "the regime" kill people on a national basis. It was Ezhov who did this, in pursuit of his own conspiracy to overthrow the Soviet government.

In the official sense the Soviet government, the Politburo, Stalin, all bore responsibility for Ezhov's mass murders in that they were, formally, in overall charge of the country and therefore were obliged to take steps to stop criminal activity and to punish those responsible. This is true of all governments and heads of state anywhere at any time.

However, no one holds a government morally responsible for illegal crimes and atrocities committed by government officials unless the government discovers those crimes and yet refuses to punish the perpetrators. The Stalin government did vigorously pursue, investigate, prosecute, and punish Ezhov and the NKVD men under him who were responsible for these atrocities.

Therefore it is not true that the Soviet government or "regime" was guilty of these mass murders or that Ezhov was some kind of "scapegoat." Ezhov's mass murders were a rebellion against the Soviet government, Party, and Stalin.

Snyder Admits That Poland Was Anti-Semitic, Like Nazi Germany

Grand deportation schemes made a kind of sense in 1938, when leading Nazis could still delude themselves that Poland might become a German satellite and join in an invasion of the Soviet Union. More than three million Jews lived in Poland, and Polish authorities had also investigated Madagascar as a site for their resettlement. Although Polish leaders envisioned no policies toward their large national minorities (five million Ukrainians, three million Jews, one million Belarusians) that were remotely comparable to Soviet realities or Nazi plans, they did wish to reduce the size of the Jewish population by voluntary emigration. After the death of the Polish dictator Józef Piłsudski in 1935, his successors had taken on the position of the Polish nationalist right on this particular question, and had established a ruling party that was open only to ethnic Poles... (112)

Here Snyder finally admits the truth: it was prewar Poland that was racist like Nazi Germany. The USSR was not in the least.

Snyder Denies Poland Wanted to Invade the USSR Alongside Germany

Piłsudski's heirs in this respect followed Piłsudski's line: a policy of equal distance between Berlin and Moscow, with nonaggression pacts with both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, but no alliance with either. On 26 January 1939 in Warsaw, the Poles turned down the German foreign minister, Joachim van Ribbentrop, one last time. (113)

In one of his articles Snyder makes the same false claim:

Ribbentrop's master Adolf Hitler wanted a deal so that he could begin a war. For the Nazis, the Soviet Union was the main enemy, and its agriculture and oil the prize. But between Germany and the USSR lay Poland, and the Poles expressed no interest in being the junior partner in the adventure. (2009-4)

This is all false. Up till the beginning of 1939, when Hitler decided to turn against Poland before making the war on the USSR, the Polish government was maneuvering to join Nazi Germany in a war on the USSR in order to seize more territory.

Here is what really happened on January 26, 1939, the date Snyder mentions. Polish Foreign Minister Josef Beck was in negotiations with Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in Warsaw. Ribbentrop wrote:

... 2. I then spoke to M. Beck once more about the policy to be pursued by Poland and Germany towards the Soviet Union and in this connection also spoke about the question of the Greater Ukraine and again proposed Polish-German collaboration in this field.

M. Beck made no secret of the fact that Poland had aspirations directed toward the Soviet Ukraine and a connection with the Black Sea... (Emphasis added.)
Original in Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik... Serie D. Bd. V. S. 139-140. English translation in Documents on German Foreign Policy. 1918-1945. Series D. Vol. V. The document in question is No. 126, pp. 167-168; this quotation on p. 168. Also in Russian in God Krizisa T. 1, Doc. No. 120.

Beck told Ribbentrop that Poland would like to seize much of the Ukraine from the USSR, for that was the only way Poland could have had "a connection with the Black Sea." Such aspirations could not have been fulfilled without an invasion of the Ukraine. Poland could never have undertaken such an invasion by itself. Therefore Beck was stating his openness to a joint Polish-German invasion of the Ukraine, if the conditions became favorable.

This means that, far from "expressing no interest in being the junior partner" with the Nazis in carving up the USSR, Beck expressed considerable interest - but, given the current political situation, begged off. Snyder withholds this information from his readers.

Snyder Terms Stalin's Anti-Hitler Move a 'Pro'-Hitler Move

In spring 1939, Stalin made a striking gesture toward Hitler, the great ideological foe. Hitler had pledged not to make peace with Jewish communists; Nazi propaganda referred to the Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, Maxim Litvinov, as Finkelstein. Litvinov was indeed Jewish - his brother was a rabbi. Stalin obliged Hitler by firing Litvinov on 3 May 1939. Litvinov was replaced by Stalin's closest ally, Molotov, who was Russian. The indulgence of Hitler ... (115)

Source (n. 56 p. 474):

* Haslam, Collective Security, 90, 153.
* "On Litvinov, see Herf, Jewish Enemy, 104; and Orwell, Orwell and Politics, 78."

That is completely wrong. Let's look at Snyder's sources.

Haslam, Collective Security, page 90 concerns Litvinov's gloomy conclusions in late 1935 that France was drifting in an anti-Soviet direction. Jakob Surits was sent to "activate contacts in Berlin", since the last thing the USSR wanted was any kind of Franco-German alliance against the Soviet Union. Surits, by the way, was Jewish. At page 163 Haslam outlines similar remarks by Litvinov to the effect that if France would not ally, or "have anything to do with" the USSR, then the Soviets would have to turn towards Germany.

Snyder's reference "On Litvinov, see Herf, Jewish Enemy, 104" is pure bluff. Page 104 of Herf's book discusses how satisfied Goebbels was to see Litvinov back in a prominent position after the Nazi invasion. This says the opposite of what Snyder states, so Snyder probably meant "Herf, 93." There Herf writes:

The replacement of the Jewish foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov by Vycheslav {sic} Molotov had signaled the end of Soviet support for popular-front antifascism. As the historians of the Soviet Union Mikhail Heller and Alexander Nekrich put it, "for the first time since the founding of the Soviet state anti-Semitism was becoming official policy."

Soviet policy was becoming "officially" anti-Semitic? What is Herf's evidence for such a serious accusation? Herf's footnote 2 is to Heller and Nekrich, Utopia in Power (NY, 1986), p. 364. But there the search for evidence ends, for Heller and Kerich, visceral haters of Stalin, have no evidence at all to support this statement.

Here is what Geoffrey Roberts, one of the best academic historians of the Stalin period in the West, says:

Why did Stalin choose to replace Litvinov at such a critical moment? A common interpretation is that it was a prelude to the pact with Nazi Germany signed in August 1939. The problem with this explanation is that far from abandoning the triple alliance negotiations with Britain and France, Molotov pursued them with even more vigor than Litvinov. The most likely explanation is that Molotov's appointment was connected to Litvinov's failure to make any headway in the negotiations. (Roberts, Molotov, p. 21.)

As Roberts concludes, Snyder, Herf, and Heller and Nekrich, are all wrong. In fact the opposite was the case. Molotov was the closest person to Stalin in the Soviet leadership. His appointment signaled redoubled efforts to get "collective security" - guarantees from Britain and France that they would fight Germany if the USSR did. These talks only failed in the end because the British envoy, Admiral Drax, arrived in the USSR by slow boat and without any authority to sign any agreement. There is no evidence that any desire to "indulge Hitler" had anything to do with Litvinov's replacement.

Snyder appears to recognize this, in a vague way, in the following paragraph:

The alternative to a German orientation, an alliance with Great Britain and France, seemed to offer little. London and Paris had granted security guarantees to Poland in March 1939 to try to deter a German attack, and tried thereafter to bring the Soviet Union into some kind of defensive coalition. But Stalin was quite aware that London and Paris were unlikely to intervene in eastern Europe if Germany attacked Poland or the Soviet Union. (Emphasis added.)

Once again Snyder is completely wrong in claiming that London and Paris had "tried...to bring the Soviet Union into some kind of defensive coalition." In reality, just the opposite was the case. The USSR had tried to negotiate a mutual defense pact with the UK and France. This attempt foundered because the British did not want it, and the French went along with the UK. The transcript of the negotiations between the British, French, and Soviet representatives was published in the Soviet Union in 1959 in two successive issues of the Soviet journal Mezhdunarodnaia Zhizn' {= "International Life"}. "Peregovory voennykh missii SSSR, Anglii I Frantsii v Moskve v Avguste 1939 g." Mezhdunaronaia Zhizn' 2 (1959), 144-158; 3 (1959), 139-158. The texts are available online (in Russian), including:

* the August 12, 1939 session, during which British Admiral Drax admits that he has no powers to conclude any agreement;

* the August 16 telegram from French Foreign Minister Bonnet to the French Ambassador to Poland Noel, insisting that he make clear to the Poles that their agreeing to allow Soviet troops to cross Polish territory to engage German forces is absolutely essential for any collective security agreement;

* Polish Foreign Minister Josef Beck's August 20 telegram to Juliusz Łukasiewicz, Polish Ambassador to France, declaring that Poland refuses any military agreements with the Soviet Union. This is the document that definitively sabotaged any collective security agreement, thus guaranteeing both the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Poland's defeat in September 1939.

(Cyrillic)
A Polish source states that this document was sent to Polish Ambassador to London Edward Raczynski rather than to Łukasiewicz and gives the Polish original as follows, of which the Russian text above is a faithful translation: (Polish) English translation:

The French and English ambassadors have approached me as a result of negotiations of the Franco-Anglo-Soviet staffs, during which the Soviets demanded the possibility of entering into contact with the German army in the Pomorze, Suwalszczyna, and in eastern Little Poland {i.e. Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine - GF}. This position is supported by an English and French demarche.

I responded that it is impermissable that these states discussed the question of the military use of the territory of another sovereign state. No military treaties bind Poland with the Soviets, and the Polish government does not intend to conclude a treaty of this kind.

The French ambassador said that in that case they will reply to the Soviets that the Polish government has refused any discussion or that the French government has not undertaken a formal demarche since it is certain of a negative reply.

I leave the question of a response to the Soviets to France and England, with the stipulation that the answer will not give any reason for misunderstanding.

Beck
(Emphasis added.)

This was the direct cause of the failure of collective security against German aggression. It was thereby also the direct cause of the German invasion of Poland. Hitler feared a two-front war; his general staff even more so. He would not have invaded had collective security been established. And it would have been established - except for England and Poland.

In his interview in Isvestiia of August 27 1939 Marshal Voroshilov put it this way: (Cyrillic) Translated:

The Soviet military mission considered that the USSR, having no common frontier with an aggressor, can render assistance to France, Great Britain, and Poland only if its troops will be allowed to pass through Polish territory, because there is no other way for Soviet troops to establish contact with the aggressor's troops.

Just as the British and American troops in the past World War would have been unable to participate in military collaboration with the French armed forces if they had no possibility of operating in French territory, the Soviet armed forces could not participate in military collaboration with armed forces of France and Great Britain if they are not allowed access to Polish territory.

Despite the fact that this position is obviously correct, the French and English military missions did not agree with this position of the Soviet mission, and the Polish government openly declared that they did not need and would not accept military help from the USSR.

These circumstance made military collaboration between the USSR and these countries impossible.

This is the basis of the disagreements. Over this the negotiations have been broken off. (Emphasis added)
Translation of the first two paragraphs of Voroshilov's statement is taken from "Soviet 'Explains' Break with Allies", New York Times August 27 1939, p. 28

There is also good evidence that Beck had been well paid by the Germans to act in their interest - that he was, in fact, a German agent.
See the document cited at http://tinyurl.com/beck-german-agent-1 from a large collection of documents from Soviet archives. A discussion of this important document took place in 2011 on the H-RUSSIA mailing list. See the posts beginning June 29, 2011 at http://tinyurl.com/beck-german-agent-1 and ending November 21, 2011 at http://tinyurl.com/beck-german-agent-11

Snyder Falsifies the "Molotov-Ribbentrop" Nonaggression Pact

Snyder states "{t}he two regimes immediately found common ground in their mutual aspiration to destroy Poland." (116)

In fact, the very opposite is the truth. Far from "destroying Poland", the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was intended to guarantee the continued existence of Poland in case the German Army overran it. Here is the text of the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact:

Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish State and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.
From Paul Halsall's "Modern History Sourcebook", Fordham University. At http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html

By this secret protocol, as long as "an independent Polish State" continued to exist, it would be east of the Narev-Vistula-San line and Germany could not occupy it. See here for a map http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/mlg09/m-rpact.html That would be desirable for the USSR. Such a rump Polish state would (a) provide a buffer between German troops and the Soviet border; and (b) be hostile to Germany and more likely to agree to a mutual defense treaty with the USSR, something that, as we have seen, Poland rejected as late as August 1939, less than a month before the Polish-German war.

But no one had foreseen that the Polish government would abandon its country without appointing a successor government, thus leaving Poland without any government at all. Without any command for the military and without any entity with which to negotiate a surrender Hitler had the pretext - and, in fact, a good case in international law - to take the position that Poland as a state no longer existed.

German declaration that Poland as a state no longer existed amounted to a threat to repudiate the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which concerned "the Polish state." If Germany insisted there was no "Polish state" any longer it was free to send its troops hundreds of miles further to the East, to the borders of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. And this is exactly what happened. Hitler's government stopped referring to "Poland" and began referring to "in the area lying to the east of the German zone of influence."

The USSR could not stand by while Hitler's army rolled up to its pre-1939 borders. No state in the world would have acted this way. Nor did international law demand it. This compelled the USSR to enter "the former Polish state" in order to prevent the German army from marching up to the 1939 Soviet border.

Chapter Seven of the present book is devoted to a more detailed examination of the issue of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact and questions related to it.

Snyder Fabricates a "Justification for Mass Murder" by Stalin

The irony was that Stalin had very recently justified the murder of more than one hundred thousand of his own citizens by the false claim that Poland had signed just such a secret codicil with Germany under the cover of a nonaggression pact. (116)

This statement is just another outright falsification by Snyder. Stalin never made any such statement, and - naturally - Snyder does not cite a shred of evidence that he did.

Snyder Begins His False Account of the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact"

Officially, the agreement signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 was nothing more than a nonaggression pact. In fact, Ribbentrop and Molotov also agreed to a secret protocol, designating the areas of influence for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union within eastern Europe: in what were still the independent states of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania.... now the Soviet Union had agreed to attack Poland along with Germany. (116) (Emphasis added, GF)

This is a lie. We have quoted the Secret Protocol above. It contains no agreement whatever to "attack Poland" at all, ever, much less "along with Germany." Of course Snyder cannot cite any evidence in support of his statement here.

Throughout the rest of his book, and in many of his articles, Snyder writes about the "alliance" between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. For example:

... the Nazi-Soviet alliance... ...the union between Moscow and Berlin... (116-7)

Two days after the Soviet military victory over Japan, on 17 September 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland from the east. The Red Army and the Wehrmacht met in the middle of the country and organized a joint victory parade. (117)

All these statements are false, and of course Snyder has no evidence to support any of them.

1. There was no "Nazi-Soviet alliance." Snyder repeats this over and over again. But it never existed, so of course he has no evidence that it did. Nor was there any "union between Moscow and Berlin."

2. The Red Army did not "invade Poland." It sent troops into "the former Polish state" only after the Germans had informed the USSR that there was no longer any "Poland." This meant that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was no longer in effect, because it was a pact concerning Poland - and Germany considered that Poland no longer existed. Germany told the Soviets that if they did not send in troops, "new states" would be formed in Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine. That meant a pro-Nazi Ukrainian Nationalist state, as the Soviets no doubt knew.
Some primary source documentation of these statements may be found in an appendix to my article on the M-R Pact at http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/mlg09/no_partition.html See also Chapter Seven of the present work.

Given this situation the Soviets had no choice but to send in the Red Army. No state in the world would have permitted the German Wehrmacht to march right up to its borders without taking some kind of action to prevent it.

3. There was no "joint victory parade." In the next chapter we will expose, in detail, Snyder's lies about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and related issues.

By opening half of Poland to the Soviet Union, Hitler would allow Stalin's Terror, so murderous in the Polish operation, to recommence within Poland itself. Thanks to Stalin, Hitler was able, in occupied Poland, to undertake his first policies of mass killing. In the twenty-one months that followed the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, the Germans and the Soviets would kill Polish civilians in comparable numbers for similar reasons, as each ally mastered its half of occupied Poland. (117-118)

Every one of these statements is false. Naturally Snyder has no evidence for any of them.

* The "Polish operation" was not "Stalin's Terror." The many murders in the "Polish operation" were carried out by Ezhov in pursuit of his conspiracy against the Soviet government and Party. Stalin had nothing to do with them. This is well demonstrated by the evidence we have. At least one expert though highly anticommunist historian, Khaustov, has admitted that this is what happened.

* The USSR did not carry out any "terror" in Poland at all. As we shall see, Snyder is unable to find any evidence of such a "terror."

* To say that Hitler's "mass killing" was "thanks to Stalin" is the reverse of the truth. As though Hitler would not have killed Poles if he had occupied all of Poland instead of just the Western half! On the contrary: he would have killed many more Poles if he had had the whole country under his control.

* Hitler's conquest of Poland and the subsequent mass killings of Polish citizens were the direct result of the Polish government's rejection of collective security, and then of their abandonment of their own country, leaving it without any government. The Polish government must share with Hitler the responsibility for the immense death and destruction visited upon Poland by Hitler.

The Polish regime's refusal either to agree to collective security with the USSR or to avoid war with Germany by yielding to Hitler's demands (more German rights in Danzig and a "corridor" to it and to East Prussia) was suicidal. No one believed that the Polish army could stand up to the Germany army unaided. Yet the Polish regime flatly refused any alliance with the Red Army, the only military force that could have intervened in a timely manner if Germany should attack Poland, as in fact it did.

* The Polish government made the situation qualitatively worse by committing an unprecedented act of cowardice. The government, along with the military leaders, abandoned the country and crossed the border to internment in Rumania. Since Rumania was neutral in the war it had to "intern" the Polish government, rather than permit it to operate safely on Rumanian soil, or be guilty of a hostile act against Germany.

Moreover, the Polish government failed to appoint a successor government, either within Poland or in exile, before fleeing into Rumania and being interned. Once interned, the former Polish government figures could not perform and governmental functions. That meant that there was no Polish government and no one with whom Hitler could negotiate. It also meant that the Polish Army, parts of which were still fighting - Warsaw had not yet fallen to the Germans, for example - no longer had a legitimate commander. Therefore, as a state, Poland had ceased to exist. No other government in World War 2 acted in this manner.

Naturally, one could also blame the governments of Great Britain and France, who failed to honor their obligation to attack Germany if Germany attacked Poland. Their actions proved that Soviet suspicions were correct. The Western Allies were not inclined to hinder Hitler as long as he kept "moving East", towards the hated Soviet Union.

Even Winston Churchill acknowledged that the Soviet Union was correct to enter Poland rather than allow the German army to march right up to the pre-1939 Soviet border. In his radio speech of October 1, 1939, printed in the New York Times on October 2, 1939, p. 6, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, said:

Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian Armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland. But that the Russian Armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.

Churchill also agreed that it was in the interest of the Allies to have the Red Army occupying these territories:

... here these interests of Russia fall into the same channel as the interests of Britain and France. (Emphasis added, GF)

The Soviets declared their neutrality in the German-Polish war. Their neutrality was accepted by every state as well as by the League of Nations.

* The Soviets killed no "Polish civilians" in the following 21 months, let alone for "comparable reasons" to Hitler's. Hitler's reason was the extermination of Slavs!

* The part of Poland "occupied" by the Soviet Union had been seized by Poland in an imperialist war in 1919-1920. Poles were a minority among the population. The Western Allies immediately recognized that Poland had no claim to these territories and they would not be returned to Poland after the war ended.

Since 1939 these same lands have been part of Belarus and Ukraine and remain so today. The Polish government no longer claims that these lands are a part of Poland or should be returned to Poland.

xipe posted:

are there any soviet archives online?

anti communist material seems to just refer to documents in libraries in moscow, and as Furr shows they will distort interpretations or just make things up.

i have not found anythings so far

This is the record from Kiev, a sample large enough to derive a trend. The sample size is around 1,000 people, the crimes arrested for and punishments clearly listed.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByBFn-YU1TduTEJCNkpYN2ROczQ/view?usp=docslist_api

Shows that only about 10% of execution orders were carried out.

Crow posted:

its really funny that Panopticon's family are like nazis or whatever and that he still playacts a communist

no my GRANDparents were nazis rescued from the clutches of the kgb during operation paperclip. get it right

Crow posted:

Panopticon posted:
Crow posted:
its really funny that Panopticon's family are like nazis or whatever and that he still playacts a communist
no my GRANDparents were nazis rescued from the clutches of the kgb during operation paperclip. get it right


is that supposed to be a joke or something