Fw: The Fall of 'Challenge'?

["David Shemano" <dshemano@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Barkley --

I am not following your argument.  Let's assume that Lenin's actions in
seizing food from the peasants was primarily motivated by the need to feed
soldiers fighting a civil war.  Under such circumstances, we could agree
that Lenin did not "desire" the deaths of the peasants.  However, Lenin
surely knew that if you not only take surplus food from farmers, but the
food the peasants had grown for their own subsistence, famine will result
and people will die.  Therefore, as set forth below, under a legal
definition for purposes of legal culpability, Lenin had sufficient "intent"
to be guilty of murder.  His defense must result on the justification of the
act.

With respect to Stalin, he had the experience of observing the famines of
the 1920s.  For him (or you) to argue that he did not know or should not
have known the consequences of his actions at any time in the early 1930s is
simply not credible.  In fact, the opposite is true -- after observing the
massive peasant resistance to Lenin's policies, Stalin undoubtedly concluded
that even harsher methods would be required to implement collectivization.

Regarding Hoover:

	Did he desire that people die?  No.

	Did he know to a substantial certainty that people would die if chose
policy A as opposed to policy B?  No.

	Under the circumstances, did Hoover's policies reflect a reckless
indifference to human life?  No.  He was consumed with trying to figure out
what to do.

	Under the circumstances, did he act negligently and did his negligence
cause people to die?    Very doubtful.  When Franklin D. Roosevelt is
attacking you for deficit spending, Hoover's specific policies at the time
were mainstream and within the range of policies considered acceptable by
reasonable persons.  In any event, showing causation between a Hoover policy
and a death is problematic, to say the least.  There is no such problem with
Lenin and Stalin policies.


Here is some more legal language for you:

Modern Penal Code (Official Draft, 1985); Section 2.02 (General Requirements
of Culpability)

	(2) Kinds of Culpability Defined

		(a) Purposely

		A person acts purposely with respect to a material element of an offense
when:

			(i) if the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result
thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or
to cause such a result; and

			(ii) if the element involves the attendant circumstances, he is aware of
the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist.

		(b) Knowingly

		A person acts knowingly with respect to a material element of an offense
when:

			(i) if the element involves the nature of his conduct or the attendant
circumstances, he is aware that his conduct is of that nature or that such
circumstance exists; and

			(ii)if the element involves a result of his conduct, he is aware that it
is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result.

		(c) Recklessly

		A person acts recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense
when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the
material element exists or will result from his conduct.   The risk must be
of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and purpose of the
actor's conduct and the circumstances know to him, the disregard involves a
gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a law-abiding person would
observe in the actor's situation.

		(d) Negligently

		A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense
when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the
material element exists or will result from his conduct.   The risk must be
of such a nature and degree that the actor's failure to perceive it,
considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances know
to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a
reasonable person would observe in the actor's situation.


With respect to murder, the Modern Penal Code treats murder as a subset of
criminal homicide.  While criminal homicide is defined as a person who
"purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently causes the death of another
human being,"  murder is more narrowly defined as:

	Criminal homicide constitues murder when:

		(a) it is committed purposely or knowingly; or

		(b) it is committed recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme
indifference to the value of human life.



David Shemano



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of J. Barkley Rosser,
Jr.
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 7:18 AM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:15972] Re: RE: Re: Re: Fw: The Fall of 'Challenge'?


David,
      The quick response (missed a plane to those
who know I am not supposed to be online now, outtahere
in an hour) is that Lenin in the early 1920s, Stalin in the
early 1930s, and Mao in the late 1950s did not know,
and certainly did not INDISPUTABLY know what the results
of their actions would be.  In all three cases they were
engaging in grand social experiments that essentially had
never been tried.  In all cases they were full of arguments
about pure communism in the first case, about economies
of scale in the second case, and about even purer communism
in the third case, that gave them reason to believe that rather
than famine, increased ag productivity would result.
     Of course,
as already mentioned, the case of Stalin in the early 1930s
is much murkier and more complicated.  At some point he
knew what was going on and did little to alleviate it when he
arguably could have.  Although even this remains under
contention, with some of the more rabid of the Ukrainian
nationalists claiming that it was actually the Soviet leaders
on the ground in the Ukraine, especially Khrushchev, who
were responsible for sealing the border and aggravating
the famine conditions.
      And the case of Lenin in the early 1920s is also complicated
by the exigencies of both internal civil war and external invasion,
including by the United States.  In fact the disastrous policy
he carried out, requisitioning ag products without paying from
peasants, had been previously tried in wartime situations.  To
add these numbers, and they were in the millions, to this total
is especially absurd in light of these facts.
     Like Mao, but unlike Stalin, Lenin pretty quickly figured out
that his policy was mistaken, and once the war slowed down
and after the Kronstadt uprising, he instituted the NEP in response.
     BTW, it was Herbert
Hoover who led the aid program for the famine victims in Soviet
Russia in the early 1920s.  It was one of the things that first
brought him to public attention as an allegedly humanitarian
technocrat.  Oh well, intentions and knowledge, indeed.  Was
Herbert Hoover guilty of those who died in the Great Depression?
Barkley Rosser