The Crisis of Soviet History of the Stalin Period and What We Should Do About It

Speech by Grover Furr

 

The history of the first workers’ state, the USSR, during its heroic period, when it was led by Joseph Stalin – that history is withheld from us. It is smothered by lies from dishonest and very influential sources.

How do we know this is so? What is the situation? Who are the liars? Why is this important? Finally, what should we do about it? The future of the world’s working class and the fight for an egalitarian world of what Marxist researcher Charles Andrews has called “No Rich, No Poor,” depends on what we do. 

I began to discuss this question in an earlier article titled “Marxists Behaving Badly” which you can download from my Home Page. However, that was a very partial discussion of this enormous challenge to all of us. In my talk today I intend to confront this crisis more directly.

Trotsky’s Comintern Conspiracy – The Case of Osip Pyatnitsky

Trotsky’s Comintern Conspiracy – The Case of Osip Pyatnitsky by Grover Furr and Vladimir L. Bobrov (2024, Erythros Press and Media, 389 pp.)

Reviewed by Charles Andrews

Osip Pyatnitsky was the secretary of the executive committee of the Communist International, often called the Comintern, from 1923 to 1935, when he was replaced by Georgi Dimitrov. Pyatnitsky’s tenure thus runs from the middle 1920s, when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union debated socialist industrialization at length and agreed on it, to the first seven years of implementing the policy.

Grover Furr's Khrushchev Lied to be published in Greek

Grover Furr's most popular book, "Khrushchev Lied", is going to be published in Greek language (Automorfosi Publishers, Athens) in the beginning of September 2024 under the title "The Lies of Khruschev" (Τα ψέματα του Χρουστσόφ).

In his “Secret Speech” of February 1956 Nikita Khrushchev accused Joseph Stalin of immense crimes. Khrushchev’s speech was a body blow from which the worldwide communist movement never recovered. It changed the course of history.

Paul Robeson Jr, Trotskyites and Anti-Stalinism

The following text is a speech delivered by Professor Grover Furr, Professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University in New Jersey, during an online session (Watch the speech on YouTube)  organized by the Institute for the Critical Study of Society, at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Oakland, California, on Sunday 31 March. 

 

(Warning: Not for faint-hearted Trotskyites) 

Grover Furr — Paul Robeson's Meeting with Itzik Fefer, June 1949

By Grover Furr

In 1981 Paul Robeson’s son, Paul Robeson Jr, claimed that his father had told him privately that in June 1949 he, Paul Sr, learned about the persecution of some prominent Jews in the Soviet Union, but had never publicly revealed this fact and had asked his son to promise not to reveal it during his, Paul Sr’s, lifetime. In later years Paul Jr repeatedly confirmed this story. In the present article I check this story against the evidence that is now available. I conclude that Paul Jr’s story is untrue. 

Anti-Stalin Falsehoods from a “Socialist” Writer

Prof. Grover Furr refutes Alex Skopic’s article “Stalin Will Never Be Redeemable"

 

By Grover Furr.

 

In the January – February 2023 issue of Current Affairs there appears an article titled “Stalin Will Never Be Redeemable”. Its subtitle reads:

 

Stalin was socialism’s worst enemy. History is easily forgotten, so nostalgia for the “Man of Steel” needs to be guarded against.

Grover Furr: Message for Nikos Mottas' book on Stalin and Anti-communism

Message sent by Professor Grover Furr on the occasion of the presentation of Nikos Mottas' book titled "Yes, but Stalin..." in Athens:

"I am glad to hear that Nikos Mottas’ book exposing and opposing the attacks on the Soviet Union, especially on the period of Soviet history when Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Communist Party and, for some period, of the government of the Soviet Union.

Jean-Jacques Marie vs Grover Furr on Joseph Stalin

Jean-Jacques Marie and Grover Furr.

In December 2021, British journal "Historical Materialism" published reviews of two books ("Yezhov vs Stalin" and "Khrushchev Lied") written by American professor Grover Furr. The reviews are signed by French historian, specialized on Soviet History, Jean-Jacques Marie. 

According to professor Furr, "Historical Materialism" declined to publish his answer to Marie's reviews which, as he states, "are full of crude personal insults, attempts at sarcasm and full of shocking errors". 

Stalin did not deport German communists to Hitler

By Grover Furr.

A critique of an essay by Alex de Jong in Jacobin magazine, August 2021.

In August 2021, the social-democratic magazine Jacobin published an article by Dutch writer Alex de Jong titled “Stalin Handed Hundreds of Communist Over to Hitler”. The assertion in the article’s title is false. De Jong’s article, and other articles and books that make this claim, all commit the following three cardinal errors:

Truth and lies about Stalin - An exclusive interview with Grover Furr

On the ocassion of the 140th birth anniversary of Joseph Stalin we asked Professor Grover Furr to share with us his thoughts on some issues surrounding Stalin and the period of his leadership. Grover Furr, a Professor of medieval english literature at Montclair State University in New Jersey, is well-known for his research and writings on a vast range of issues about Soviet history. Some of his most famous books include "Khrushchev Lied", "The Moscow Trials as Evidence", Trotsky’s "Amalgams", "The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre: The Evidence, The Solution" and others. The name of Grover Furr is included in the list of the "101 most dangerous academics in America".

The centennial of the 1917 October Revolution to be commemorated in New York (Left Forum, 2-4 June)

Marxism-Leninism Today is co-organizing a panel commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution at the Left Forum in New York City.

Jointly co-sponsored with the Party of Communists USA, the panel is entitled: “The Russian Revolution and its Indelible Stamp on the Course of World History”  

The event will take place on Sunday, June 4th at 10:00 AM. Room 1.124 John Jay College, 899 10th ave (between 58 & 59th Sts.).

Featured panelists include Zoltan Zigedy and Joseph Jamison both members of the Editorial Board of Marxism-Leninism Today;  George Gruenthal an officer of the PCUSA; and Grover Furr Professor at Montclair State University and author of  several volumes , including "Khrushchev Lied"; "Yezhov vs Stalin" and "Trotsky’s Amalgams".

Trotsky’s Lies - What They Are, and What They Mean

Trotsky’s Lies - What They Are, and What They Mean

 

By Grover Furr*.

The personality and the writings of Leon Trotsky have long been a rallying point for anticommunists throughout the world. But during the 1930s Trotsky deliberately lied in his writings about Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. My new book, Trotsky’s ‘Amalgams’, discusses some of Trotsky’s lies that have fooled people, and demoralized honest communists, for decades. 

In January 1980 the Trotsky Archive at Harvard University was opened to researchers. Within a few days Pierre Broué, the foremost Trotskyist historian of his time, discovered that Trotsky had lied. Trotsky had always denied that any clandestine “bloc of oppositionists” including Trotskyists, existed in the Soviet Union. Trotsky called this an “amalgam,” meaning a fabrication by Stalin. This “bloc” was the main focus of the second and third Moscow Trials of January 1937 and March 1938. Broué showed, from letters in the Trotsky Archive by Trotsky and by his son Leon Sedov, that the bloc did exist.

Grover Furr- Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan (Part II)

Grover Furr- Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan (Part II). Continue from Part I.

Source: Cultural Logic, 2009.

Objectivity And Persuasion.

Political prejudice still predominates in the study of Soviet history. Conclusions that contradict the dominant paradigm are routinely dismissed as the result of bias or incompetence. Conclusions that cast doubt upon accusations against Stalin or whose implications tend to make him look either “good” or even less “evil” than the predominant paradigm holds him to have been, are called “Stalinist.” Any objective study of the evidence now available is bound to be called “Stalinist” simply because it reaches conclusions that are politically unacceptable to those who have a strong political bias, be it anticommunist generally or Trotskyist specifically. The aim of the present study is to examine the allegations made in the USSR during the 1930s that Leon Trotsky collaborated with Germany and Japan against the USSR in the light of the evidence now available. 

Grover Furr- Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan (Part I)

Grover Furr- Evidence of Leon Trotsky’s Collaboration with Germany and Japan.

Source: Cultural Logic, 2009.

“If an objective research project on the events of those years were to be done, free of ideological dogmas, then a great deal could change in our attitude towards those years and towards the personalities of that epoch. And so it would be a “bomb” that would cause some problems. . . .”

Col. Viktor Alksnis, 2000.

“. . . it is essential for historians to defend the foundation of their discipline: the supremacy of evidence. If their texts are fictions, as in some sense they are, being literary compositions, the raw material of these fictions is verifiable fact. Whether the Nazi gas ovens existed or not can be established by evidence. Because it has been so established, those who deny their existence are not writing history, whatever their narrative techniques.” – Eric Hobsbawm, 1994, p. 57.

“. . . we can demolish a myth only insofar as it rests on propositions which can be shown to be mistaken.” – ibid., p. 60.