[Marxism] RE: Deaths under Stalin

[Brian Shannon <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the summer of 1963, I had to go to Fort Ord near Monterey,
California, for the 2 weeks army service that was required for army
reservists. I took along with me various Marxist texts and a copy of
Khrushchev's Secret Speech of 1956. I forget why, but I arrived a day
late and was unable to go out in the "field." There had no alternative
duty for me, so I had a whole week to study.

No horror movie or book has ever equalled the impact of reading
Khrushchev's Speech (http://www.uwm.edu/Course/448-343/index12.html) as
a young Trotskyist. The sweat of my body in the summer heat of the
barracks combined with terrible chill as I attempted to integrate this
speech with my Trotskyist theory, with the fact that my organization
was historically connected with what had happened to "thousands" and
"tens of thousands." Trotsky had provided us with a theory* that armed
us to understand what had developed, but it could not calm my emotions.

The speech was not about what happened to political opponents of
Stalin. It was about what had happened to the victorious Stalin faction
itself. Khrushchev's complaint was that Stalin had destroyed his own
followers. I don't know to what degree Khrushchev organized his speech,
but it appeared to be in part spontaneous. For at the beginning, he
refers to hundreds, later to thousands, and finally to tens of
thousands.

Two Extracts:
(1)
Stalin's willfulness vis a vis the Party and its Central Committee
became fully evident after the 17th Party Congress, which took place in
1934.

Having at its disposal numerous data showing brutal willfulness toward
Party cadres, the Central Committee has created a Party commission
under the control of the Central Committee's Presidium. It has been
charged with investigating what made possible mass repressions against
the majority of the Central Committee members and candidates elected at
the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

The commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials
in the NKVD archives and with other documents. It has established many
facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists, to
false accusations, [and] to glaring abuses of socialist legality, which
resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent that many
Party, Soviet and economic activists who in 1937-1938 were branded
"enemies" were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but were
always honest Communists. They were merely stigmatized [as enemies].
Often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged
themselves (at the order of the investigative judges/falsifiers) with
all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes.

(2)
The question arises why Beria, who had liquidated tens of thousands of
Party and Soviet workers, was not unmasked during Stalin's life. He was
not unmasked earlier because he had utilized very skillfully Stalin's
weaknesses; feeding him with suspicions, he assisted Stalin in
everything and acted with his support.

* "I have taken great care not to laugh at human actions, nor to weep
at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them." Baruch Spinoza.

from Brian Shannon

p.s. If it is not already there, Khrushchev's speech should be added to
the Marxist archives, probably with a different set of footnotes.


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