[Marxism] Stalin's justification of torture

[David Thorstad <binesi@xxxxxxxxx>]

       Today is Stalin's birthday. Here's his view of "socialist"
       torture methods, similar to those
       of the U.S. imperialists.
       David
       
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

       Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, aka Joseph Stalin, born
       December 21,
       1879, died March 5, 1953.

       On Applying Physical Pressure to Prisoners

       by Joseph Stalin

       To the Secretaries of oblast and regional party committees,
       To the CCs of national Communist parties,
       To the people's commissars of internal affairs,
       and to the heads of NKVD directorates

       It has become known to the VKP CC that the secretaries of oblast and
       regional party committees, in checking up on employees of NKVD
       directorates, have laid blame on them for the use of physical
       pressure
       against those who have been arrested, treating it as something
       criminal.
       The VKP CC affirms that the use of physical pressure in the work
       of the
       NKVD has been permitted since 1937 in accordance with a
       resolution of the
       VKP CC. This directive indicated that physical pressure was to
       be used in
       exceptional cases and only against blatant enemies of the people
       who, when
       interrogated by humane methods, defiantly refuse to turn over
       the names of
       co-conspirators, and who refuse for months on end to provide any
       evidence,
       and who try to thwart the unmasking of co-conspirators who are
       still at
       large, and who thereby continue even from prison to wage a struggle
       against the Soviet regime. Experience has shown that such an
       arrangement
       has produced good results and has greatly expedited the unmasking of
       enemies of the people. True, subsequently in practice the method of
       physical pressure was abused by Zakovsky, Litvin, Uspensky, and
       other
       scoundrels, converting it from an exception into a rule and
       beginning to
       apply it against honest people who had been arrested
       accidentally. For
       these abuses, they [the scoundrels] have been given due
       punishment. But
       this in no way detracts from the value of the method itself when
       it is
       properly used. It is known that all bourgeois secret services
       use physical
       pressure against representatives of the socialist proletariat
       and rely on
       especially savage methods of it. We might therefore ask why a
       socialist
       secret service should be any more more humane in relation to
       inveterate
       agents of the bourgeoisie and sworn enemies of the working class and
       collectivized farmers. The VKP CC believes that the use of physical
       pressure must absolutely be continued from here on in
       exceptional cases
       and against blatant and invidious enemies of the people, and
       that this is
       a perfectly appropriate and desirable method. The VKP CC demands
       that the
       secretaries of oblast and regional party committees and the CCs of
       national party committees bear in mind this explanation when
       they check up
       on the employees of NKVD directorates.

       Secretary of the VKP CC
       J. Stalin
       January 10, 1939


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